The Innocence of a Warrior
by SHMANDER
Summary: They say our memories are what make us who we are. If that is the truth than what are we capable of without them? What would a young, ruthless, brutal warrior do if she was suddenly left with nothing but a name, on a planet far more peaceful than her previous life. (Pre-canon start) (Daddy Ozpin) (First Fanfic) (M-Rating possible because RWBY plays with our emotions)
1. Chapter 1

**The Innocence of a Warrior: Chapter 1, Touchdown**

* * *

Professor Ozpin, one of the greatest Huntsmen on Remnant, Headmaster of Beacon Academy, tactical genius of near unrivaled patience, was NOT having a good year.

First, one of his old, most trusted students, goes off on a mission with her partner and doesn't come back. Her partner blames himself for her disappearance, and like many good men, succumbs to the condition of alcoholism. In addition, her other old teammate, and father of her child, is now left a single father of two young girls.

Second, someone, he wasn't sure who, was tracking Amber, the fall maiden. As soon as Summer's partner gets his life back together, Ozpin was going to assign him to keep an eye on her, James Ironwood was doing his part to keep her safe for now, but they needed a more discreet agent out there.

Third... there was some sort of meteorite on a direct collision course with the Emerald Forest, way too early in the morning.

"You've got to be-"

 ***BOOM***

He was so lucky that it was summer vacation, so most of the students and faculty were away for the next few months. This was going to take a while to clean up.

* * *

Ozpin calmly strolled through the forest, any Grimm being easily dispatched as he proceeded towards the crash site. Reaching a previously non-existant crater, he was surprised to see how small the object that crashed was, and more surprised to see that it wasn't just some rock, but some type of pod.

The metal it was made of was silver in color, with a blue glass pane acting as a window in and out of said pod. Upon closer inspection the front of it seemed to be covered in hastily scrawled characters, from what language he hadn't a clue. Despite that, the symbols above and below said characters conveyed the intended message rather well.

Danger.

Ozpin, being the... eccentric man that he is, walked closer to the pod to peer inside. Perhaps there would be some form of grotesque, monstrous, alien life form inside that could threaten the lives of everyone on remnant. Peering through the glass, he was more shocked by what he found than that.

Inside, unconscious, was a young girl. She couldn't have even been 10 years old, maybe 6 or 7. She had medium length spiky black hair and wore what seemed to be some kind of gray and purple tunic and skirt.

He immediately began palming around the sides of the pod, looking for a release. To his surprise, the pod seemingly opened on its own, releasing gas in what seemed to be depressurization. Ozpin took a moment to collect himself before reaching in and gently lifting the child out of the small room.

He examined her physical state, there miraculously didn't seem to be any visible wounds on her, and her breathing, while soft, was steady. Through this examination he discovered that she was a faunus, as a monkey-like tail poked out from a hole in the back of her skirt. Despite her healthy appearance, he'd need to bring her back to Beacon's medical center for a proper evaluation.

Holding her steady, Ozpin started walking back towards Beacon, contemplating the child's origins, before his train of thought was halted by his scroll ringing.

"Hello?"

" _Ozpin, it's Glynda, I just heard about an explosion in the Forest. Is everything alright?_ " The concerned, yet somehow still stern voice of his friend asked from the line. Ozpin looked back in the direction of the crash site before replying.

"Yes, Glynda, everything seems alright. I'm just gonna need you to help with repairing the landscape soon."

* * *

"Ozpin, I know there's something you're not telling me. I'm not gonna ask, because usually you keep secrets for the good of all involved, Oum knows about all the faunus that hide what they really are here." The nurse muttered that last part, "but I'm going to require you bring her back for checkups every couple of weeks, just so I can make sure this is how she's supposed to be." Ozpin raised an brow with concern slightly raised in his voice.

"Oh? Is something wrong?"

"No. You said you found her on the edge of an explosion caused crater, but she has no damage whatsoever anywhere on her body, she may have some kind of brain damage but I can't tell until she wakes up." She summarized, "however, her muscle and bone density is far greater than that of most extreme athletes, let alone children. I just want to run some check ups, make sure this is natural for her." Ozpin let out a sigh of relief. Taking a sip of his coffee he smiled at the nurse.

"Alright then, I hope you don't mind me sticking around until she wakes up." He said before taking another sip.

"Of course not, she should be waking up soon, so it won't be much of a wait." She answered before leaving the room, likely to check up on supplies, or perhaps double check the test results. The nurse was only gone for a few minutes before the young girl began to stir in her bed, Ozpin set down his cup, and folded his hands under his chin, looking at her with as calming a look as he can create.

Her eyes flew open revealing amethyst irises as the pupils darted around the room in a brief panic before settling on him.

"Hello." She said sheepishly, seemingly shrinking into the bed.

Ozpin blinked, he had been expecting pretty much everything but that. He was expecting everything from 'who are you, where am I,' to just loud screaming, the simple greeting caught him off guard, albeit only very briefly.

"Hello." He replied with a soft voice, reserved for when dealing with children.

"Um, this is probably the weirdest question to ask in this situation, but," The level of speech was also surprising, rather well spoken for an elementary school age girl. "Do you know who I am, because I don't remember anything."

Figures it was impossible to escape that crash without any injuries, but amnesia would probably be the most difficult to deal with.

"Are you sure? Not even a name?" She looked deep in thought for a few moments, before she just looked at him with a smile and nodded. "And what might this name be?" He asked kindly.

"Shaya." She said with a soft smile, he was nice, she didn't know who she was, but she liked nice people.

"Well, I am Professor Ozpin, if you don't remember any loved ones or guardians, do you think you would like to stay here at my school, Shaya?" She frowned for a moment while looking out the window, at the beautiful landscape and architecture of the school around her.

She simply nodded, a small smile on her face, before she removed the monitoring equipment from her and stood up out of the bed, only now just noticing the hospital gown she was wearing.

"Do I... have any other clothes?"

* * *

Shaya, fully dressed in the attire she arrived in, walked beside Professor Ozpin, eyes wide as she took in the sheer magnitude of the beauty of the buildings around her. Her tail swayed happily as she seemingly experienced the world for the first time. He said he was going to take her to get food, so she followed him without even a moment of contemplation.

"THIS is a school?!" She all but shouted from next to him, he simply nodded. "And you work HERE?!" He just chuckled.

"I would hope so, after all it wouldn't make sense for a headmaster to NOT work at their school." He replied with just a little mirth. Her response was to gasp as she put her hands on each of her cheeks and pushed them together.

"That must be awesome." She said with a hushed, awestruck, tone.

"Be careful with that." He said and was met with a confused look, "that level of adorableness could be weaponized and used to strike down even the greatest of foes." Instead of getting an indignant pout or a flush of embarrassment from the girl, he was given a look of serious contemplation in reply.

"I'll need to work on that then, never know when it might be helpful." He looked at her in surprise for a moment before she just smiled and stuck her tongue out at him. "I can play that game too." She bragged.

They walked through the door to the cafeteria, and were met with the chatter of the students that decided against going home for the summer.

"Good morning, Professor Ozpin." A white haired woman said as she walked by with a small tray of food, before stopping to smile at Shaya, "and who's this little one?" She asked politely. Ozpin was surprised to see the previously playful and chatty girl hide half of her form behind him.

"Good morning, Winter, this is Shaya." He introduced as he took half a step away in an attempt to reveal Shaya, only for Shaya to cross the same distance in sync with him, keeping her just as hidden as before. "Shaya, this is Winter Schnee, a very skilled and bright second year at my school."

Winter reached out a hand towards Shaya, but stopped at about halfway between them, Shaya slowly reached out towards and shook Winter's hand.

"You're really pretty." She said quietly, Winter gave a smile.

"Thank you, you are too." Getting a bright smile out of Shaya in return. "Maybe I'll see you sometime later, Shaya." Winter said before walking away towards a table.

"We'll just come sit with you once I get some food!" Shaya called out to the older girl. Ozpin watched the brief exchange with a small smile and small amount of confusion, before heading towards the food with the young girl.

"Now why were you being so shy, at first, you certainly didn't act like that with me." He commented as he picked out his own breakfast sandwich as well as a variety of meats, fruits, and vegetables. He looked over to see Shaya picking out more meat than anything else, as well as a large variety of said meats. She grabbed a couple of fruits before picking up her tray and walking towards where Winter was sitting.

"You said I was adorable, when an adorable thing looks scared bad people try not to be so bad, and good people try to be even better." She explained with a natural child's innocence in her tone.

"I don't believe I've ever heard of or seen manipulation be performed so benevolently." Ozpin responded as he and Shaya sat down across from Winter, who looked far more surprised by the child's choice of food and the sheer amount of it than he had.

"By Oum, Shaya, do you really plan on eating all of that?" She asked incredulously. Shaya just shrugged before digging into her meal so voraciously that calling it ferocious would be an understatement. Ozpin raised an eyebrow, but nonetheless responded to Winter's inquiry.

"Shaya here has a significantly above average muscle density than normal, I'm guessing this is one of the ways she maintains it." He answered calmly, taking a bite from his breakfast sandwhich, that was when a blonde woman with green eyes decided to make her presence known, she walked over and tapped Ozpin on the shoulder.

"Professor Ozpin, I took care of the 'landscape issues', but I have a few questions." She let the end statement hang for a moment. Ozpin finished off the sandwhich, before wiping his face with a napkin and standing.

"I see. Excuse me Winter, Shaya, I will return momentarily. Winter, do keep an eye on her please." He said as he left the two to their meals, Shaya not even slowing down as she gave a grunt of understanding, while Winter stared in morbid fascination as the small girl wolfed down a slab of venison.

* * *

Ozpin and Glynda went off to one of the unoccupied parts of the mess hall, before Glynda shot Ozpin a look of mild irritation.

"So, are you going to tell me what model Atlas contraption I just buried in the middle of the forest?" She asked. To which he bit back a smirk.

"Believe it or not I don't think it was Atlesian, or even Remnation in nature." He spoke hushedly. Goodwitch just raised an eyebrow.

"Aliens, Ozpin, really?"

"I found a surprisingly mature child with amnesia, a knack for manipulation, a highly carnivorous appetite, and a muscle and bone density greater than anyone short of a body builder. In a metal ball. In the middle of the woods. I don't think aliens are the weirdest part of this situation." He recited calmly before taking a sip from his coffee.

The deadpan stare she gave him was strong enough to break concrete. "Then what is?"

This statement was immediately followed by a startled yelp, a smashing noise, and the sound of a table breaking.

"That."

"Oh dear."

* * *

Prior, with Shaya and Winter

"Where are you putting all of it?" Winter asked the young girl, receiving no response other than the continued sounds of meat being torn and chewed. Her thoughts on the stomach capacity of the child were interrupted by a sound she was all too familiar with.

Stupidity.

"Huh, I didn't know this school allowed small animals on campus." Came a voice that, if Winter's expression was anything to go by, was unwelcome.

"Leave the kid alone, Thrush." Winter called back calmly at the racist and his team that strolled over behind Shaya, not that she acknowledged them, she just kept on eating.

"Y'know I would, if it weren't for the fact that this is really confusing to me." He said, scratching the side of his head. "I mean, I thought that monkeys weren't big meat eaters." He said as he grabbed Shaya's tail and tugged while he and his team laughed.

That was when Winter noticed a distinct lack of sound that she had recently grown used to hearing.

The sound of eating.

"YAAAHH!" Shaya yelped, before twisting her form towards the significantly larger form, forcibly unbending his fingers to release her tail from his grip before, in a display that stunned everyone present, she flipped him over her and while he was in mid air she spun and kicked him straight in the gut, sending him through the table she was just eating at.

"That." Came the voice of the white haired headmaster.

"Oh Dear."

* * *

 **Alright, so that was the first chapter of my first ever fanfic, if you guys couldn't tell this story starts at about 10 years before the show itself starts.**

 **The OC is actually my character from Dragon Ball Xenoverse. My friend and I came up with the idea for this story after we thought of "What if our characters from (insert game here) ended up on Remnant?"**

 **We've come up with these concepts for several other games as well, such as Dark Souls, Fallout, Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online, Syndicate, Prototype, etc.**

 **If this gets good feedback, not only will I continue writing it, but I might even start on some of the others.**

 **Please leave any suggestions, comments, questions, or criticisms in the review section.**

 **No flame please.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Precautions**

The entire mess hall was silent, everyone staring at the little girl that just threw a nearly grown man through a table, as she stared down at the floor, before falling to her hands and knees and openly weeping.

"My... my food!" She cried out, startling everyone even further. "It was innocent!" Winter walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Shaya, are you-" The white haired woman started before a small hand was firmly placed over her mouth.

"Stop! I must grieve." The child declared as she returned said hand to the ground beneath her. The entire room stayed in this state for a few more moments before the sound of hard soled shoes and cane hitting the tiled floor brought everyone's attention to Ozpin, who strolled across the room as if the whole situation hadn't even happened before holding out a hand for Shaya to take hold of.

"Theatrics are all well and good, Shaya, but we should really get you cleaned up. Afterwards, we can get you a buffalo to dine on if you so wish." He spoke the last line with a small smirk as she looked up at him, before down at her clothes, which were riddled with wood chips and meat stains, before taking hold of his hand and standing up.

"Um," She started dusting off her tunic and skirt, "I don't suppose there're any other clothes my size around here, are there?" At the shake of his head she merely sighed. "Of course not. By the way, what's a buffalo?"

That was the last line heard from either of them by the students and faculty in the cafeteria. All of them quiet until one voice spoke the question on everyone's mind.

"...The fuck just happened?" Came the pained groan of the racist on the floor.

* * *

"So it's a big, hairy, animaly that tastes really really good?" Shaya asked, summarizing what Ozpin had told her about buffalo, which had been surprisingly in depth.

"Essentially."

"Why couldn't you just say that?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I like to consider myself somewhat of a teacher." This got a small laugh out of Shaya. "If I might ask, where did you learn to do what you did to that boy back there?"

Shaya stopped walking and looked up at him. "I... don't really know. It just came to me the moment he grabbed my tail... that hurt... a lot." She said, wrapping her tail around her waist in some sort of self-embrace. She then looked up at him, a look of confusion on her face. "Why don't you have a tail?"

Ozpin gave a small smile and began explaining. "You see, Shaya, you are what is known as a faunus. A species of human that has certain traits of other animals. It seems that you are a type of ape or monkey faunus." He stopped walking as they passed by an unused student dorm. "During your time here, this will be your room. There is a bathroom connected that you should use to clean yourself up. In the meantime I'm going to send for a smaller uniform from one of the nearby schools that may be able to fit you."

Shaya looked at him for a few moments before looking at the room slightly nervously. "You're not gonna leave me alone for too long, right?" She asked. Ozpin kneeled down and softly patted her on the head.

"Of course not, I just need to have a meeting with someone about your stay here. Afterwards I will continue to help you get acquainted with my school."

"Oh is it the lady that looks like a librarian?" Shaya asked. Ozpin could only chuckle in response at first.

"Yes, unfortunately, it is."

* * *

"What on Remnant were you thinking?!" Ozpin opened his mouth to respond to the question but was cut off before he could even speak. "Don't answer that, I already know. You were thinking that if anyone else got word of an alien that they would have it locked up and dissected, but seriously Ozpin, bringing it here of all places?!" Goodwitch asked exasperatedly, to which she was greeted with Ozpin's narrowed eyes.

"Do not refer to Shaya as an 'it', _SHE_ is a very intelligent little girl, regardless of her origins." He set his mug down on his desk. "She will be staying here, at this school, because there is no where else that can keep all parties involved happy and safe." She was about to cut him off when he raised a single finger to interrupt her. "I will also be keeping a close eye on her personally, to make sure she doesn't pose a threat to anyone." Glynda put her hand on her side and pointed out at him.

"What about James? He's going to find out sooner or later, what do you think he'll do when he finds out you're keeping possible the first ever extra-terrestrial life form as a guest at your school?" Ozpin merely folded his hands under his chin.

"Why Glynda, are you saying James wouldn't believe that I've allowed a young faunus with amnesia to stay at my abode out of the good of my heart?" He said with a smirk across his face. "I'm sure he'd be hurt to hear about your opinion of him."

"Okay, fine. What about Qrow? He's your own intelligence agent. He's definitely going to find out, sooner rather than later." She asked pointedly.

"I'm sure that once he hears about the adoption, he'll be thrilled at the prospect of babying another little girl whenever he gets time to himself." Ozpin finished with a playful look in his eyes.

"Alright fine- wait... adoption?" Goodwitch asked with a deadpan powerful enough to break steel. Ozpin only waved a hand dismissively.

"Well of course, the media would have a field day if they just found out I was just travelling around with a little girl with me."

"That's disgusting."

"So are the reporters."

They stayed in that position for several moments before Glynda's stare broke.

"Fine." She sighed, "just promise me you'll talk to me before making any other hasty decisions like this?" She asked in a defeated tone.

"I would Glynda, but I don't like lying, we'd both know it'd only be a matter of time." He responded with a small smirk.

* * *

Elsewhere, on a small island off the coast of Vale, 6 year old Ruby Rose sneezed and shivered.

* * *

"I guess I should have expected that. Anyways, I might as well meet the child that will be living here, shouldn't I?" Goodwitch said in reluctant acceptance.

"Yes, yes you should. Oh, by the way, she says she thinks you look like a librarian."

* * *

"You really had her stay in team STRQ's old dorm? Really?" Goodwitch said as she and Ozpin neared the room that Beacon's youngest resident occupied.

"Well, after that incident with the red dust crystal, duct tape, and that garden hose, there is certainly more than enough room to house one little girl." Ozpin said as he moved to knock on the door, and immediately caught a black and brown blur that launched itself straight into him.

Shaya's hair was literally shining with how clean it was and she was wearing what looked like the normal Beacon students' uniform except for how small it had to be to fit her, and the fact that the skirt was a mixture of black and light gray plaid, instead of the red pattern that the normal uniforms had. She seemed to have cut out part of the back of the uniform so as to allow her tail more room.

"You said you weren't gonna be gone long!" She whined as she kicked her legs in the air while the headmaster held her at arms length.

"And I wasn't, I was only gone for an hour, at the most." He spoke softly to placate the small child. "Besides, you're certainly tough enough to be by yourself for an hour, after all you did put that upper classman through a table." Her only response was to look towards the ground before muttering.

"I don't like being alone, I start to hear this really high 'eeeeeeeeeeeeee' noise and it makes me really uncomfortable, and these clothes are really nice, but it hurt to try and put them on before I made a hole in it and I'm just really really bored can we please do something?" She rambled for a while before taking notice of the other person present. "Oh, hi lady."

"Hello, my name is Glynda Goodwitch. I am the combat teacher here at Beacon, as well as Professor Ozpin's assistant." She introduced herself as she reached out a hand to shake with the small child, who took it with a grip that she hadn't expected.

"I am Shaya. I am devourer of meat and destroyer of tables." The introduction made Glynda blink for a moment, before she actually burst into a small fit of chuckles.

"I guess I'm going to be seeing a lot of property damage for the foreseeable future aren't I?"

"And missing cattle!" The child proclaimed proudly with a grin. Goodwitch looked at Ozpin for a moment before saying to both of them.

"I think you'll fit in just wonderfully with us here, little Shaya."

* * *

 _1 week later_

Ozpin was having a rather good night, he had gotten ahead of schedule on the administration process of the next year of students, as well as having gotten Shaya fully accustomed to the school's grounds. She had her own Scroll and had his and Glynda's numbers should she need anything.

The two got along surprisingly well, considering Glynda's own reluctance to having her there, but what really got him was the fact that Shaya actually got her to joke with her. His banter with the aura-caster was normally extremely one-sided.

Ozpin also quickly found that Shaya enjoyed spending time with Winter. He told her of Shaya's personal and historical amnesia, and they had found that despite being able to speak their language fluently, Shaya was completely illiterate. The Schnee girl taught Shaya to read and write, while at the same time teaching Shaya world history as a way of reviewing it for herself.

Professors Port and Oobleck would be returning next week, and he wanted to surprise them as much as possible, which meant he would need to ask Shaya about the adoption soon, however he was unsure of how the young girl would react.

 ***knock knock knock***

"Yes, come in." Ozpin called from his desk, and the door opened to reveal the child he had been thinking about previously. "Shaya, what are you doing up this late?" She didn't look like she had gotten much sleep, but she looked groggy which implied she had gotten some, her black and purple pajamas being ruffled implied the same.

Shaya rubbed her eye as she replied. "I had a bad dream, the moon wasn't broken, and there was this really big monkey that was breaking everything. Then it opened its' mouth towards me and there was a bright light and then I couldn't go back to sleep... can I stay here?" She asked at the end of her rambling.

Ozpin walked over and gently lifted her up, before heading over towards a side room. "Of course, I have a few extra beds for when friends of mine stay a bit too late." He took her to one of the guest beds in his home before laying her down and making sure she was comfortable. He walked back towards the door when he stopped and turned towards her. "Shaya?"

"Yes?"

"What would you think of us becoming a family?"

"Aren't we already?"

* * *

 **That is the end of chapter 2. I am trying to keep myself on a weekly update schedule, no faster, no slower. This is my first story, and I really want to enjoy writing for the long term, so I'm pacing myself with these updates.**

 **As I grow more comfortable with writing the updates will become larger and more frequent.**

 **So, until next time everyone, please leave me any comments, criticisms, or suggestions you may have and I will gladly take them into consideration.**

 **Also, someone posted a guest review saying that my story was, and I quote, a "Stupid self insert." Now, I don't know about you guys, but I highly doubt that I am a 6/7 year old, purple eyed, monkey girl.**


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3: Extending Her Reach_

The staff at Beacon were all in the assembly hall, they all knew that it was for the sake of an update on any recent events, as was normal for every year. Though the majority of the faculty were unaware of the rather major update in the personal life of the Headmaster, and a handful were confused by sightings and talk of a child that seemed much to young to be a student in one of the student uniforms. The only ones aware of the interesting turn of events in that room were Professor Ozpin, Glynda Goodwitch, the medical staff, and one of the chefs.

"-this coupled with the fact that we're getting a surprising number of students from Vacuo, means we'll be having a larger than normal blend of cultures this year." Ms. Goodwitch finished the list of generic announcements before she looked up with a small smile. "Now, will all of that over and done with, Professor Ozpin has a personal announcement to make."

Ozpin stepped up to the center of the stage and took a sip of his coffee before he began. "Now, I know this is a bit off schedule for those of you that transferred in recently, but for those of you that know me extensively, it should come as no surprise to hear that I've recently made a large and sudden decision that will impact my future for years to come." This received a few laughs from the faculty. "Now, without further interruption I would like to announce-"

"Weeeeeeee!" Came the excited voice of Shaya as she swung onto the main stage using one of the ropes hooked up to the curtain, quickly rebounding off the floor with a small flip and landing on Ozpin's shoulder with both arms stretched out into the air, giving her body a sort of 'Y' formation.

Ozpin completely ignored this and kept speaking, albeit with a small smirk on his face. "-that I have adopted a young girl, may I introduce my daughter, Shaya Ozpin." She jumped off of his shoulder, landing square on the edge of the stage.

"Hi!" Ozpin took another sip of his coffee while waiting to hear the responses.

There was some muttering and whispers, a small, but still existant, number of eyes narrowing at the faunus in front of them. Shaya's shoulders slumped, suddenly becoming very aware of the scrutinizing gazes from the crowd, and took half a step back before a new voice rose from the audience.

"Well now, this is certainly something I hadn't expected from you, old friend." A squinty-eyed white bearded man's voice rang out above the gossip that already began to form. The large man walked up to the stage and knelt down, seemingly looking her over. "Well, you certainly have a good spirit about you, a strong will if I've ever seen one, so I'm going to do what I've done for a long time now. I've known Ozpin a long time, and he has made many choices that others have questioned, but never once has he led me astray." He let out a chuckle before shaking Shaya's hand vigorously. "A good grip on you too, well Shaya, welcome to Beacon. My name is Peter Port, Huntsman extraordinaire."

Shaya's eyes widened in recognition. "You're the one Dad told me about! Is it true you threw a Beowolf through a cabbage stand?!"

The two started talking (more like rambling) to eachother for a rather extended period of time, during which Bartholomew Oobleck began taking notes off to the side.

The small group of 3 became suddenly ignorant of the scrutinizing gazes of various other members of the staff, seemingly trying to direct negative energy towards the small child. Little did _they_ know, another set of eyes were calmly darting over each and every one of them, keeping count of the number of bigots that may serve as an issue for Shaya in the coming years. There weren't many of them, but there were certainly more than Ozpin had been expecting.

The meeting quickly ended with only the four adults that were on significantly good terms with Shaya staying around to talk. Oobleck became interested with the Shaya's aptitude for history, her knowledge of the worlds' past leaders and wars quickly started him on giving her an impromptu exam on the subject. During this time, Ozpin subtly pulled Port to the side.

As they distanced themselves from the group, Port's expression became more serious, and he raised an eyebrow inquisitively at Ozpin.

"You noticed it too, I take it?" The headmaster asked his portly companion.

"The looks of distaste at best, or the significant rise in negative emotion when she referred to you as 'dad'?" The Blunder-Axe wielder questioned in return. Ozpin didn't dignify the rhetoric with a response.

"Peter, I need you to promise me that in her time here, Shaya will NOT be subjected to bigotry, I need you to promise me this because I cannot be there with her at all times of the day." Ozpin pleaded for one of the only times in his life.

"This depends, is it Professor Ozpin asking me this, or is it the old Ozzy that used to run around getting in fist fights so that others didn't need to?" Port smiled through his fluffy mustache.

"I'm asking you as a newly made Father, one who honestly doesn't know what he's doing, and only wants to make the right choices." This got a simple nod from Peter, as a small voice called there attention back to the main part of the room.

"Dad?! Can we go into Vale sometime soon?" The lone child called to Ozpin.

"Of course, Shaya. Might I ask why?" He replied to his daughter, the thought still felt foreign in his mind, no matter how many times he thought it.

She looked towards him with a beaming smile, "I wanna meet the people I'm going to be protecting once I become a huntress!"

In that moment, Ozpin understood why Summer Rose had threatened him with bodily harm should he ever admit her daughters into his school, in that one sentence Shaya had filled him with so much pride and terror that he was honestly shocked that his calm visage didn't crack.

However, he physically couldn't picture himself denying her of her dream to become a huntress, the conviction within her high pitched voice when she spoke sounded not like the words of a child, but those of someone ready and willing to make the world a better place.

So, he opted to say nothing, only to smile and lift his daughter onto his shoulder as he began his trek to the bullhead stations. Although he had nothing to say, that didn't mean his little chatterbox was done.

"Can I learn martial arts while we're down there too?"

* * *

The streets of Vale were quiet, at least, more so than usual. The city still buzzed with the sounds of life and idle chatter as the two subjects of recent media gossip strolled along the sidewalks, one of them examining everything in sight, while the other watched everything around him with subtle caution.

Bystanders all around them took notice, some openly staring, others attempting subtly to take pictures with their scrolls, some with friendly smiles and waves, others with distrustful sneers, and lastly many that seemed just surprised, having somehow not heard about the adoption taking place.

If Shaya noticed any of this, she didn't let it show, her attention so focused on everyone that she hardly noticed what _they_ were focused on. They must have walked for at least an hour straight, merely taking in the city, as Shaya seemed to map out the very world before her eyes. They probably would have kept walking had it not been for a very distinct sound emanating from her stomach.

Ozpin looked at her with a raised eye-brow. "If you were getting hungry, you could have just said so." He informed her. Shaya rubbed the back of her head with a smile before she began sniffing at the air.

"Oooohhh, something smells really good." She said as she began lazily walking in a direction, and he followed, as he knew exactly where she was going.

The two came to a stop in front of a pizza resturaunt, a large sign that read "Papa G's" above the front door. Ozpin opened the door and watched with no small amount of amusement as his daughters eyes grew wider and wider with each passing moment exposed to the aroma.

The two walked up towards the counter where the man running the cashier gave a pleasant wave. "Oh, hello Headmaster Ozpin, are you here to plan another party at your school?" He asked with a patient smile.

"Oh no, those only come for certain events or rewards, my daughter here began getting hungry and followed the scent of your establishment to its origin." The father replied while gesturing to his now salivating child. The man behind the counter gave a small chuckle before looking towards her with some amount of concern.

"Is she going to be okay? I don't think she's blinked since she entered." He asked while scratching the back of his head.

"Foooooooooooooooooood." She drawled out, sharply punctuating the end of the word.

"She'll be fine, I'll have a pepperoni Stromboli, and she'll have an extra large meat lovers pizza." The cashier raised an eyebrow.

"Really, are you sure she'll be able to eat all of that?" He asked with a small amount of amusement at the child's trance-like state.

"FOOOOOOOOD!"

"Yes."

"Alright then Professor, I'll have your order ready in just a few minutes."

Ozpin gave a smile and a nod, before taking Shaya to a table, where she occupied herself with the various mazes and word searches supplied for children. As promised, it was only a minute or two before the meals arrived for the two of them. Shaya's pizza had easily taken up half of the table, not that it mattered when the small girl dug into her food with the zeal of one on the verge of starvation. She finished her meal before Ozpin was even halfway done with his significantly smaller dish.

It was at this time a woman with a tag that read "assistant manager", approached the two at their table with an odd smile on her face.

"Excuse me, sir?" She asked.

"Yes, is there a problem?" He responded with his usual sincerity and calmness.

"Oh, no of course not, but I'm going to need to ask that while you finish your meal you have your pet wait outside." In an instant, Shaya felt the temperature in the room drop significantly.

"That won't be a problem." Ozpin said as he stood up, taking his Stromboli in hand. The assistant manager suddenly had a more relaxed look on her face.

"Oh, wonderful-"

"Because this establishment has suddenly lost my patronage until further notice." He cut her off with a sudden sharpness in his tone. He began his walk to the door, with Shaya quickly following behind him. She didn't understand what was going on, but she could tell that the lady made her Dad upset, so she turned around as they left and stuck her tongue out at her.

As they left the building, they heard a loud slam followed by the _cashier_ , shouting as loud as he possibly could, " **YOU DID WHAT?!** "

* * *

Once Ozpin had calmed down from the situation, he and Shaya began a rather quiet walk back to Vale's airport, that was until his scroll had started ringing. He opened it to see that Qrow had been the one to contact him.

"Hello?"

"Heeyyyy Oz." Came the slurred voice from the other end of the device. "What's this I hear about you adopting some little munchkin?" Ozpin sighed at the state of his friend.

"Her name is Shaya, Qrow, and she's actually looking to become a huntress, so I was wondering if you knew any good hearted martial artists that may be able to tutor her." There was a loud series of coughs coming from the scroll.

"Okay, Oz, I'm either not sober enough, or drunk enough, to question what the hell you're doing, so I'm just gonna go with it." Came the surprisingly rational reply. "As for that tutor, isn't there some martial artist family out in that border village Torvild's from?"

"Torvild... you mean the Valkyrie boy?"

"Not a little boy anymore Oz, but yeah, what's the name of that other family there... the uhhh..."

"The Ren's?" Ozpin guessed lazily.

"Yeah, them! Just go ask one of them. Once she learns the basics, she can refine that at Signal, then she'll just need a weapon and she's good to go." The, so far, quiet Shaya spoke up at that point.

"Hi Mr. Qrow! Can I really go to Signal?"

"Oh shi- dang, you have me on speaker Oz? Anyway, yeah kid, not for another like five years or so, but yeah, why not."

"Yay!"

"Now that we've got that figured out, Qrow, I'll call you back later to discuss something else, the seasons may be changing my friend." There was nothing but silence from the other end for a few seconds.

"Oh you have got to be fu-" *click*


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So I honestly could not think of a way to expand Shaya's... escapades in that village to a full chapter, plus I've been wanting to make some more progress towards further scenes in the future, so I'm going to be revisiting that in a flashback later on. For now time skips are going to occur as Shaya grows up... in a sense.**

 **Also, really sorry about the huge delay, and sorry in advance for any future ones. I'm a senior in High School so I don't have much time to think about the story.**

 **Good news though, my friend and I have came up with enough of a bullet point plotline that we should have this going to post volume 3 no problem once I hammer out the finer details.**

 _Chapter 4: New Friends_

 _1 year later_

"What do you mean I can't go with you!?" Shaya cried indignantly at her Father. They were both in his office and he calmly sipped from his mug as she continued. "I wanna visit Uncle Ironwood."

"Shaya, this is a very important meeting, not a friendly visit. Neither of us will have enough time needed to keep you company and I don't trust his men to be compassionate enough for you." Ozpin responded. "Besides, Qrow will be the one taking care of you while I'm gone, he's finally going to get to introduce you to his nieces. Doesn't that sound better than sitting in a hotel room doing nothing for a week?"

Shaya rubbed the back of her head in thought for a moment and was going to answer when the elevator door ding'd and out strolled an only slightly intoxicated man with black hair and red eyes. Shaya's immediate reaction to his presence was to jump straight up onto his now outstretched arm.

"Mr. Qrow!" She was met with a playful glare.

"Hey! What did I say about calling me mister? It makes me sound old, besides what happened to that nice little nickname you had for me?" He asked back to the girl sitting on his shoulder. She was surprisingly heavy, if not for his aura, he wouldn't be able to hold her up for long at all.

Shaya scratched the back of her head. "Daddy doesn't like it when I call you 'Drunkle, Guardian of the Liquor Cabinet', he says it encourages alcoholism." It was at this point that Ozpin spoke up.

"Now now, I never said that I didn't like it, in fact I think it's quite fitting." He said with a smirk. "I merely told you that he'll probably never quit his habit once he's gotten a title to stick from it."

"Hey, I'm doing better. Haven't gotten completely wasted for about 4 months now."

"That's only because your tolerance has gotten stronger."

"You don't know that." Qrow dismissed with a wave of his free hand. "Anyway, so am I taking the little munchkin here to Patch or what? Taiyang's going to go out on that job pretty soon and if I'm not there within an hour of him leaving he's gonna kill me." He asked as he poked a finger straight at Shaya's face, who tried to bite said finger, only for him to pull it away at the last moment. She crossed her arms in a huff and muttered in agreement.

"Alright then. Shaya, I promise you I won't be too long on this trip, but in the meantime how about you make some more friends besides the students at my school, maybe pick up a few hobbies besides training and fighting?"

Shaya smiled at him before standing up straight (still on Qrow's arm) and doing a salute. "No promises!" She happily exclaimed. Ozpin chuckled as he pulled his daughter from Qrow's shoulder, onto his own. The three then began their trek to the landing platforms, with Shaya supplying idle chatter the whole time.

* * *

Qrow and Shaya stepped up to the door of a rather large home in the middle of a forest, now farther from Beacon than Shaya had ever been previously, and she could definitely feel that discovery in her nerves.

Qrow looked down at her with a reassuring smile before opening the door and stepping in with one of his... poorly worded announcements.

"Yang! Ruby! I'm back, and I brought a daughter!" He announced to the entire home, receiving a panicked 'WHAT?!', the sound of something falling, and a yellow and red blur shooting down the stairs. The yellow one shot straight into him, while the red one floored Shaya.

"WE HAVE A NEW COUSIN?!"

"WHO IS HER MOTHER?!"

"QROW! THE RED ONE IS TOUCHING ME!"

Qrow laughed to himself before lifting up Ruby, who dragged Shaya up with her in a death-grip hug. "Easy now, she ain't my kid, a friend asked me to look after her. You might wanna let go Ruby, she looks rather uncomfortable." This caused Ruby to actually look at the face of the one she was bear-hugging, and saw two violet eyes deadpanning at her as the tip of a furry tail drew closer and closer to her own silver eyes.

"Release me, demon, or you will lose an eye to this spear of fluffy death."

Ruby's eyes went wide and she immediately let go, causing Shaya to fall to the ground with an audible thud as she hadn't landed on her feet, which led everyone else in the room to wince.

Shaya brushed herself off, no worse for wear, and extended a hand to the two girls handing off of Qrow's arms. "Hello, I am-"

"Shaya here is going to be staying with us while her Dad is off on a business trip in Atlas, I expect we'll be on just good enough behavior for me not to get an earful when he gets back, got it?" Qrow introduced her while cutting her off.

The previously yellow blur stepped up to introduce herself, her hair was a mixture of light brown and blonde and was a bit longer than average. "Sup, the name's Yang. I like your eyes, got a fierce look in them." She was shoved down by a jumping Ruby.

"I'm Ruby, one day I'm gonna be the world's greatest Huntress!" This got her a fierce and friendly handshake from the monkey-tailed girl.

"Well then, you're going to have some competition for that title. Tell me, what's your semblance?"

Qrow chuckled to himself. _'This is going to be a long week.'_

* * *

Over the next few days, the 7, 8, and 9 year old girls bonded extremely well. Between the 3 of them they found common ground in their love of 3 things, fighting, games, and food. The first dinner they had shared left the two sisters awestruck at Shaya's appetite until Qrow had explained to them that she was abnormally strong, and that she needed to eat a lot in order to maintain that strength.

It made sense to them, since they knew that Ruby could eat as much sugar as she wanted because she would burn it off with her semblance. It was interesting to Shaya to learn that Yang hadn't found hers yet, but Ruby had.

Them sparring went pretty much nowhere, since Shaya was pretty much the only one there with an actual fighting style, and she was scared of hurting either of them.

They loved games, but they stopped playing hide and seek since Shaya could always tell where they were based on smell and hearing, they actually blindfolded her one round and she still found them, despite falling down the stairs.

Shaya was surprised to find that they had also played video games, as according to her father not nearly as many girls played video games as boys did, and that little tidbit annoyed her as she fell in love with them. She'd even made a good friend online.

"Can I log in on my account so I can introduce you guys?" She asked her new friends, who answered her in the form of nods. She quickly logged into her account, named SuperShaya, and sent a voice chat invite. The other player quickly joined.

"Hey, Shaya, you haven't been on in forever. I was starting to think that I was gonna have to finish that castle without you." Came a slightly squeaky boys voice.

"Sorry Arc-Knight, my martial arts practice has taken up a lot of time so I just forgot. I'm actually at a friends house right now so I still can't play but I wanted to introduce them to you. Oh, and if you finish that castle without me, I'll burn it to the ground." Ruby had a contemplative look on her face at that response.

"Wait, aren't castles normally made of stone and br-"

"Burn it. To. The. Ground." Shaya repeated herself clearly. "Anyway, figured you could add them and we could all play together at some point once I went back home. Their account names are Crescent-Rose and OutWithAYang." The second username drew laughter from the other side of the speaker.

"Oh my Oum that is a terrible pun, I love it. Anyways, I'll add them later, I've actually got to go soon Shaya, but have fun at your friends house." With a click the voice chat ended, and the 3 continued about their miscellaneous activities for the remainder of the day as well as until the day before Shaya was going to be brought back home.

* * *

"Ruby, are you sure it's okay for us to do this?" Shaya asked the hooded girl as they walked through the woods. "We're kinda getting pretty far from the house."

"It's fine, I left a note in case Yang or Qrow get worried, besides, they always encouraged me to go and explore new things, and I've been curious about this path for a few years now. It seems really familiar." The crimsonette replied as she continued to do a half-skip half-jog down the trail. They eventually came to a clearing that had a run down dull red shack in the center. "Woah, this is cool!" Ruby called out as she ran forward and into the shack

"Ruby! I really think we shouldn't be here, this place doesn't smell right!" Shaya shouted as she ran after her. When Shaya would be older thinking back on this, she would recognize that smell as the smell of death and decay, the smell of grimm.

Inside the shack the place was in shambles, but Ruby wasn't seeing that, she was seeing a potential club house or fort. Everything was torn up and the paint was peeling off the walls. She looked off around all the corners of the room but one, which Shaya had gone to investigate. Ruby found an old farming scythe leaning against the wall and was about to reach for it when she heard a low grumbling coming from the other corner of the room.

"Geez Shaya, if you were hungry you could've..." Ruby's words caught in her throat as she turned to look towards her friend.

Shaya was standing there, frozen, nose to nose with a very large and hungry looking Beowolf. "Ruby, you need to run, you need to go get Qrow." Spoke the petrified girl in a rather calm tone.

The wolf leaned down and sniffed at Shaya several times, before looking over her shoulder and seeing Ruby, and the Beowolf did something that would confuse anyone that heard about it. It ignored Shaya, going around her as a stream of water would around a stone, and bolted straight for Ruby.

"No, RUBY!"

"GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!"

What happened next was something that occurred so fast that Shaya couldn't even follow it. There was a flash of light and suddenly fire had spread all throughout the shack and the Beowolf had been sent flying through a support pillar, and among the smoke and debris falling Shaya had been able to discern one final detail of the situation before part of the scaffolding collapsed on top of her.

Blonde hair and golden fire.

 **A/N: So glad I finally got that update out, and what a hell of a turn it took eh? Sorry if this feels kind of rushed but I really just needed to get this fucking chapter done with.**


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5: The Other Shoe_

 _Shaya didn't know what she was looking at, her vision was hazy, and nothing she saw made sense. The land in front of her was barren, a wasteland at best. She was looking up from the ground and saw three figures, one of them was on the ground like her and the other two were standing._

 _All three of them clearly weren't human, or even faunus. She couldn't make out anything really specific about them, but they looked reptilian in nature and some of their form seemed to have spikes coming off of it._

 _She couldn't hear anything, but she knew something was being said, as the two standing figures mercilessly kicked, stomped and beat the one beneath them. They were taunting him, but she couldn't tell how._

 _She could feel herself struggling to move, to crawl forward in some vain attempt to help, and just as she felt one of her arms rise and reach out to the scene in front of her, for a brief moment she could hear._

 _Just long enough for a sickening wet crack to fill her ears,_

 ** _"POLARIS!_** _"_

 _and the world erupted into golden flame._

* * *

"-and so I believed it would be a great step forward in terms of world wide security to upgrade the Atlesian Knights with these modifications." General Ironwood finished his speech to the representatives from the other kingdoms, and was greeted with an applause. He looked to his friend and confidant, Headmaster Ozpin, only to see him looking at and talking on his scroll.

"I will be there as soon as I possibly can." He responded to whatever question he had been asked. He stood up from his seat. "My apologies but I'm afraid I must depart I need to get back to Vale as soon as possible, something has come up."

The governor from Haven made his voice known, "Now, Professor, what possible could be so important that you'd need to leave right this-"

"My daughter had a burning building collapse on her and is in the hospital, Governor, I'll be heading back to Vale, now." Ozpin stated sternly as he continued towards the exit, scroll in hand. "Now, Qrow, tell me everything that happened and _maybe_ I won't castrate you with that gardening tool of yours."

* * *

Shaya laid in the bed within the sterile, white, room. Her chest the only part of her that was moving. The silence in the room broken only by the sound of a heart rate monitor for several minutes, before the metronome of that machine was disrupted by the room door opening.

Qrow walked in, completely sober for once, and a serious, but calm, look on his face. "Well, I just called Shaya's dad. He's gonna be here within the next day or so." He said as he patted Ruby and Yang on the shoulder, trying to settle them down.

"It's all my fault." Came the voice of Yang, whose hair was now a solid blonde. "I finally get my semblance, and I've nearly killed my friend with it." Qrow knelt down and gave her a tight hug.

"Hey, now, there's no way you could've known what was gonna happen, and you saved Ruby with your semblance, so don't you ever forget about that." He said gently.

"Yeah, Yang, don't forget I'm the one that dragged her out there in the first place..." The crimsonette said, simultaneously trying to comfort Yang and berate herself at the same time.

"Ruby, I'm the adult that was supposed to be keeping an eye on all of you, this is my responsibility. No one thinks this is your fault." Qrow added, while patting her on the back.

It was at this time that a doctor walked into the room with a clipboard and a small smile, despite the situation. "Well, I can confidently say that, despite the extreme circumstances as to what caused her stay here, Ms. Ozpin will make a full recovery. I'm actually quite surprised." This filled all three guests with joy, and Qrow with curiosity.

"What do you mean, what's so surprising? I get that the fire was pretty bad, but-"

"Oh no, Mr. Branwen. It was far more than just fire. The fact that she's as healthy as she is, is nothing short of miraculous. For reasons unknown a Beowolf ignored her, then she had burning debris, and shortly after the entire shack, collapse on her as well as smoke and Auric flame completely filling her lungs." The Doctor listed off. "Any normal child, even with their aura activated would've likely died from the burning debris. Anyone period that inhaled auric flame runs an extremely high risk of collapsing a lung, and breathing in that much smoke should've cause carbon monoxide poisoning."

The doctor walked over in front of them before showing what was on Shaya's chart. "The fact that the extent of her injuries is some damage to her vocal chords which, if her ridiculous aural healing factor is anything to go by, will heal in at most a couple months, is truly a blessing."

The doctor looked up from his chart to see Ruby and Yang right at Shaya's bedside, while Qrow had all of the color in his face drain away. "Mr. Branwen, are you alright?"

"Oz is going to murder me. They'll never even find my flask."

* * *

 _3 days later._

With Shaya's condition stabilized, she was moved back to her room at Beacon to recover, at this point all she needed was bed rest and to not strain her voice. Ruby and Yang were sad that they didn't get the opportunity to say goodbye. None of the students or faculty really knew what was going on short of Goodwitch, Port, and Oobleck. That, however, didn't stop anyone from speculating on what had the Headmaster so high-strung, and Goodwitch so unfocused.

The most common rumor spreading was that Goodwitch and Ozpin were secretly in a relationship and that they were having issues. The next up being actually the most accurate, was that there was trouble with Shaya, the subject of the trouble was almost never even in the ballpark unfortunately.

Ozpin was currently walking back through the dorms towards his daughter's room, worry and frustration evident in his eyes. One student walked by and was about to ask something... too bad it was this student.

"Oh, Headmaster-" He was cut off by narrowed brown eyes, something very rare for Ozpin to display.

"Mr. Thrush, I am in a VERY bad mood as of late. If you have something actually respectable to ask for, take it up with Professor Goodwitch. If you have yet another comment to make about a classmate you dislike who just _happens_ to be a faunus, I will expel you right now." He all but growled out, and fear quickly found itself on the prior-bully's face.

Ozpin's mood completely flipped when he felt a tug on his sleeve, and followed the sensation to find his daughter smiling up at him, awake for the first time in days. That's when Felix Thrush decided to make his existence known again.

"Your... daughter, actually came up to me on my way to class and tried to use words to ask me for help finding you." He said, scratching the back of his head. "And while I don't like the anim- *cough* I mean faunus, it's uncomfortable that she can barely talk, so I decided to help." Ozpin looked at Shaya and saw her pointing at her throat and then shaking her head.

"I see." He said, the smile he was wearing was concerned, yet still happy. "Thank you, Mr. Thrush, I apologize for lashing out at you before." The bully just sort of shrugged.

"Honestly, Winter probably would've kicked my ass if I'd ignored her." He said as he turned to walk away. "I gotta get back to class, but I need to ask, what's wrong with her?"

"Her vocal chords were damaged recently, the doctors informed me that it would likely be a few months before she will be able to talk regularly again." Ozpin responded with a sad voice. Shaya in response, started to climb up his arm to sit on his shoulder. Thrush just shook his head.

"That... that sucks. Goodbye Ozpin... Shaya."

While Thrush walked away, Shaya got Ozpin's attention and poked at her stomach a bit. "Alright, Shaya, let's get you something to eat, then."

* * *

 _4 years later_

It took Shaya roughly 2 months to recover her voice properly, however since she had already gotten used to not speaking much, she was still a much quieter person when not talking to people she knew very well. She also hadn't seen much of Ruby or Yang for a while, but she made sure to attend birthdays and to invite them to hers, letting them know she held nothing at all against them.

Her favorite alcoholic was also away significantly more often than before, which worried her, but she had faith in him. What really grabbed her concern was the fact that apparently one of her father's friends had gotten hurt, he told her that it would be alright though, and that she should just focus on her lessons and friends.

Speaking of her friends, Arc-Knight was going to be trying to get into a huntsman school pretty soon too, though he'd need training from his family first. That was great news for her, as she was going to be going to Patch soon to attend Signal Academy. Yang was already enrolled, and Ruby was going to be starting next year.

She was so excited to be starting her first year at an actual school, not being taught by tutors or those people living out on the border.

So that all brought her to this moment.

Standing in front of Signal's gates.

Alone, in a crowd of people all nearly twice her height.

" _Oh yeah,_ " She thought grimly to herself. " _I don't grow as fast as everyone else_."

It was a surprise to everyone when they eventually noticed that Shaya had changed very little, physically, since the day that she woke up in the Beacon infirmary. After a quick Physical and comparison to her previous measurements, it was determined that she'd been aging at a rate only 1/9th the rate of an average girl. The reactions were incredibly varied.

Goodwitch, Port, and Ironwood were all simply shocked when they heard.

Oobleck was, at first, very fascinated.

Qrow and Ozpin didn't have time to properly react, as Shaya's reaction beat them.

Shaya immediately started crying, and it broke their souls to hear why.

 _"What's the point of making friends, if I'm going to outlive all of them."_

Shaya, who at the time had been only nine years old by their estimation, had a full grasp on the concept of death. The two adults had no words to placate the child, and instead simply comforted her as she accepted that realization.

The young faunus had been so encompassed by her memories that she didn't notice the crowd around her thin and vanish, and she was snapped out of her stupor by a familiar voice calling her attention.

"Hey, short-stuff, you're going to be late for the inauguration." The blonde girl who, since the fire, had been incredibly protective of her called to her.

"Oh, thanks for coming to get me! I was just a little lost in my own memories."

* * *

"Captain, I'm getting a signal from one of the old model pods!" A surprised man called out.

"Really? What number?" A bored woman's voice asked.

"22-7b. Captain, that's-" The man was cut off before he could continue

"I know who it is." The Captain answered sternly.

"Should we let _him_ know?" The man asked.

There was a silence that hung in the air for a moment.

"No."

"No? But Captain-"

"I said NO! We need him focused on the immediate battle. We can't have him going off on a personal agenda." The Captain ordered sternly, before her voice lowered into a more, confidant voice. "Besides, we can always send him off on a mission to... acquire her, some other time."

"Yes, Captain, what should I label the signal in the report as?" He asked his superior.

"Label it as what it is, rogue."

 **A/N: Aaaaaand that is that, got this next chapter done in an acceptable time frame, trying to get back on my weekly schedule though.**

 **Tell me if it was a little rushed, I kinda feel like it was.**

 **And don't worry, I don't have any plan to make things get darker and darker in the story, at least... not for a WHIIIIIILE.**

 **I also plan to explain many of the things that I mention here that seem out of place in a later chapter. For now, I'll leave you with that little foreshadowing at the end.**


	6. Chapter 6

Today was her first day of school at Signal. Shaya had honestly just about slept through the inauguration speech, it was drawn out and incredibly redundant at certain points.

She was, however, wide awake for the entrance evaluation. The teacher that would be overseeing the evaluation was one of the few people she actively wanted to impress. Qrow was currently going down the line of students, writing down their semblances. When he got to her and raised an eyebrow with a smile, she pouted at him.

"You already know my semblance, Mr. Qrow." She huffed.

"Yes, but I've still gotta go through this whole process, and I'll never understand why you don't like your semblance." Shaya sighed and recited her semblance.

"My name is Shaya Ozpin, and my semblance is perfect Aura Manipulation." She then added with a mumble. "The most boring semblance ever."

With a look of disagreement and a shrug, Qrow moved onto recording the rest of her future classmates semblances. After the initial recording, they moved onto tests of athleticism. The first was a race around the track.

Shaya contemplated using her aura to enhance her speed even further by focusing it into her legs, but ultimately decided against it. With her semblance that would basically be cheating out of getting faster naturally. Even without using her aura though, she still took second place to a girl with long light brown hair and rabbit ears on her head.

"That was fun, you nearly caught up with me at the end there." The girl congratulated her with a smile and a friendly handshake. "Shaya, right? My name's Fuchsia Scarletina."

Shaya returned the smile. "Thanks, you're really fast, but it didn't look like you handled too well on the turns, might wanna work on that."

The two parted, not quite as friends, but as pleasant acquaintances. The next on the list of exams was a test of physical strength. It was plain and simple, weight lifting. The machine would continue to add weight until the student either gave up or the weight hit the ground.

Throughout the gym students were already dropping their weights within a minute of picking them up, some of the brawnier students or the ones with strength or gravity based semblances lasted significantly longer. Unfortunately they were all still only twelve year olds, so they eventually simply hadn't built up the raw muscle-mass necessary for this sort of heavy lifting for very long.

Every student however DID feel incredible shock, and for the males they felt at least a little emasculated, when the girl that didn't look like she was even old enough to attend the school managed to hold well over 700 pounds above her head. She probably could've gone even farther, had she not started getting very uncomfortable with all of the staring she was receiving. Shaya gently set down the weight and started scratching the back of her head nervously. The stares of incredulity didn't stop and eventually it was Qrow's voice that saved her from this awkward moment.

"Hey, would the lot of you quit gawking at the kid? We need to move onto the next test." Praise be to Drunkle, our one true lord and savior.

The last test was one that Shaya's semblance was literally made for, aura manipulation. Qrow hefted a strange looking orb into his hands. "This is a simple light that can be powered by a person's aura. The test is simple, keep it lit," he said as he began to channel his aura into the orb, causing it to glow a dull red color. "Without breaking it." The entire orb in his hands shattered.

Overall, just about everyone in the room was doing rather well. Only a few people failed to light the orb, and even less managed to overcharge and shatter it. That being said, only two people total were able to cause the orb to glow to the same degree that Qrow had made it glow.

The first being Shaya, with her orb shining a brilliant violet, constantly on the verge of shattering but never quite getting there.

The second being a darker skinned boy, he dressed like he was going to attend the cross between a rave and a jazz club. His outfit being primarily black and white, with a neon red trim, including the fedora that he wore.

Shaya's analysis of her classmate was cut short when she felt a sharp pain run up her spine, she lost her focus and overloaded her orb, and it shattered. She quickly looked around the classroom, looking for whoever had stepped on her tail, but couldn't find anyone close enough to have done it, or smug enough to look guilty.

After the test, her rival in aura control walked up to her and gave a small fist bump. "Hey, the name's Charr Coal. What happened back there, kid? Looked like you'd gotten stabbed for a moment or somethin'."

Shaya glared around at no one in particular. "I could've sworn someone stepped on my tail back in that last test, can't figure out who though." Charr glanced around at the rest of the class.

"Never understood people like that, acting pompous and messing with others ain't gonna get you anything, and it sure as hell ain't gonna make up for a difference in skill." He said before patting her on the head. "Don't worry about it, they won't mess with you again if they know what's good for 'em."

Shaya just gave a confident smile as they were ushered into the room for the final exam, a sparring arena. It was rather spacious, and there was a space for an audience to sit. This space was being taken up by the freshmen such as herself, and the second year students, who were all allowed to watch.

"The rules for this are simple. You'll be called forward at random and you can either be matched randomly with someone else, or you can challenge another student as long as you know their name." Qrow announced to the first years. "The rules for fighting are simple as well, if you get knocked unconscious, or your aura falls into the red, you lose. If you get knocked out of the arena, and don't get back in within ten seconds, you lose. No going for lethal strikes, and if I call the match you need to stop, no questions. Understood?" He received a unanimous murmur of agreement. "Alright then, let's begin."

The first few matches weren't very impressive, and they weren't between anyone Shaya knew, so she didn't pay all that much attention. The fourth or fifth match had been between Fuchsia and Charr, with Charr coming out on top simply because he was able to predict how Fuchsia went to attack, and used her high momentum against her.

As it went further and further down the list, Shaya realized there wasn't an even number of students in her class. Meaning that there would be someone that, unless they wanted someone else in the class to fight for a second time, wouldn't get to fight today. She also realized that some students had an advantage against others here. Any student that had already forged their own weapon, was allowed to use it even if there opponents hadn't done that.

Slowly the number of students that had yet to participate got lower and lower, until eventually there was only one left.

"Shaya." Qrow called to her. "Sorry, but it doesn't seem like-"

"I challenge Yang Xiao Long."

The silence throughout the entire room was palpable. Only interrupted by the sound of someone standing up.

"I accept." Came Yang's voice.

"Now hold on," Qrow started, "you can't go and challenge-"

"I believe you said that I was allowed to challenge any other student, as long as I knew their name, you never said it had to be someone in my grade." Shaya reminded him. He sighed reluctantly and waved his niece down from the stands.

Both combatants got to their respective sides of the arena as mumbles formed in the crowd. Both fighters had their own challenging grin, but Shaya had something else to say.

"I've been looking forward to this for a while, so you better not take it easy on me." She said as she got into her stance.

Yang transformed Ember Celica and brought up her fists. "Don't worry about it."

Qrow brought up his hand, knowing he was going to regret allowing this fight. "Begin."

Shaya immediately broke off in a sprint towards Yang, who brought back her arm to throw a punch. Shaya sidestepped the hit without slowing down and grabbed Yang's arm and pulled herself forward and upward, delivering a kick straight into Yang's stomach, sending her back several feet.

Yang discharged her weapon, sending a concussive blast straight at Shaya's feet. Shaya jumped over the round and continued her charge to try and strike the blonde brawler in the head with a kick, only for the attack to be dodged as Yang grabbed her leg and flung her across the room while Shaya balanced herself out mid air and landed.

Shaya raised an eyebrow at that previous counter, and Yang charged forward at her. She went for a right hook at Shaya, who lazily brought up her hand and blocked the punch, gunshot and all. The crowd went still as Shaya glared at Yang.

"Why are you holding back?" She asked. Yang froze up, her eyes wide.

"What? I'm not-" She was cut off by a foot meeting the side of her head.

"If you weren't holding back then even if I successfully blocked a full punch from you, it would have sent me back at least six feet." Shaya said as she walked towards Yang. "Stop going easy on me. It's insulting." Yang looked at Shaya with their eyes locked.

"I don't want to hurt you." She said solemnly. "Not again."

Shaya let her aura flow into her hand in a concentration, giving it a pale purple glow. "You had to burn down a building just to give me a sore throat Yang, show me your semblance again, show me your fire!" She shouted as she went to nail Yang with the aura enhanced strike, only for Yang's head to just barely move out of the way. That's when Shaya noticed that her strike did manage to damage something, as a small strand of yellow hair fell to the ground between them.

Shaya locked eyes with Yang once again, and this time instead of meeting another set of purple eyes like her own, she met a crimson red glare, and a gauntlet clad fist met her cheek. Sending her careening into one of the walls of the arena.

Shaya immediately darted off of the cracked wall and now struck back at Yang. "That's a good start, but that wasn't what I asked for, I asked for the fire." She charged forward at the recovering Yang, who let out a shrill battle cry, and began trading blows. However, with each hit Shaya landed on Yang, Yang pushed her more onto the defensive. She eventually dodged a right hook and delivered a powerful spin kick straight to Yang's sternum.

Yang returned the favor with sweeping Shaya's legs out from under her and delivering a powerful haymaker, sending her straight into the ground. That's when Shaya noticed just a little too late, that Yang's punches were leaving burn marks. She felt herself lifted off the ground as a searing pain went up her spine and she found herself being thrown at bullet speed straight into the wall that she had cracked before, now leaving a crater.

Yang, now realizing what she'd just done, blinked and her eyes reverted to their normal lilac. Qrow, who'd witnessed the whole altercation, felt a powerful sense of foreboding. Shaya, who'd just been thrown into a wall, was fucking furious.

Yang had grabbed, burned, and thrown her by her tail.

With a battle cry that promised pain, Shaya flew from the wall she'd been embedded in at a speed that only Fuchsia was able to follow. Shaya was suddenly low to the ground just an inch or two in front of Yang with her hands pressed against the ground, using her arms to retain balance and momentum she kicked Yang straight in the bottom of the jaw, sending the blonde straight upwards.

The enraged faunus leapt off the ground driving a fist into Yang's stomach, driving her further into the air. As Shaya was about to fall back towards the ground she focused her aura just below her feet and used it as a springboard to once more send herself straight at her friend.

Shaya grabbed onto Yang's right arm and began to spin mid air, the two rotating around as they fell back towards the stage, once at a blinding speed Shaya let go and Yang crashed straight into the ground. With Shaya hitting the floor just as gracelessly a moment later, though at a lower velocity. Both combatants were left in their own respective crater, panting.

"Never. Touch. My tail." Shaya gasped out between breaths.

"Same. About. My hair." Her friend responded in kind.

They turned their heads to the aura gauge counters and both of them went pale at the gauge.

"This fight ends in a draw." Qrow called out, his own worry and shock seeping into his voice. On the screens above each side of the stadium, it read that both Shaya and Yang had only 3% of their auras left. They crawled out of their respective craters and looked at each-other before smiling and laughing as though they'd just been told the funniest thing in their lives.

The audience that was their peers erupted into cheers at the incredible fight they'd just witnessed.

* * *

"So you're sure you're okay?" Shaya asked her friend for the fifth time.

"Shaya, for the last time I'm fine, my aura wasn't depleted throughout that entire fight, so the worst I could have is a concussion. I don't have a headache so it doesn't even seem like that happened." Yang reassured the small girl. "Anyway, thanks to some strings that Qrow pulled, we get to share a dorm room, and you'll get started on building your weapon tomorrow. Isn't that awesome?"

"Yeah. I think I'm gonna like it here." The violet eyed girl said. "Yang, thank you for being my friend."


	7. Chapter 7

Shaya woke up to the world and for a moment forgot that she'd moved into Signal Academy's dorms, only remembering when she saw Yang asleep in the bed across from hers. With the events from yesterday coming back to her, she checked her tail and saw that it had already recovered from the burn that her friend had left on it in their sparring match.

The small first year student got dressed in the school uniform and grabbed her scroll, she never used pen and paper for taking notes in the first place as she lost said papers far too easily, so she instead used the device that did pretty much everything for her academic needs.

Making her way towards the school's workshop for the weapons design class, she ended up nearly running into another first year, unlike her however, this one was at least a head taller than just about everyone else she'd met so far. He wore a black overcoat that came down to his knees, dark red cargo pants, a plain white shirt, and black dress shoes. He had pale yellow eyes and his pupils were shaped like slits, and his hair was a dark enough red that you'd think it was black unless he was in direct light.

He hadn't said anything to her, nor really interacted with her in any way, so she normally wouldn't have payed much attention to him. However, he simply looked so unique that she couldn't not take notice. He eventually reacted to her analysis of him with simple eye contact and a nod, and then proceeded into the classroom.

"Good morning, students, I am professor Auburn. Since we are here to craft weaponry for the purpose of slaying grimm, can anyone tell me what the best type of weapon is?" The generic looking teacher asked the entire crowd of students.

He received a variety of answers from the audience, all different generic weapon types, all different reasonings. He began to look as though he were getting frustrated with his class before the boy she'd met before the class started stood up and spoke.

"There are only two acceptable answers to that question." He announced with authority. "One's own mind, and the weapon that one is most comfortable with wielding." The teacher's eyes lit up with appreciation.

"Correct, thank you Mr. Anguis." He congratulated the strange boy. "All the reach, speed and power that a weapon may be capable of won't mean a thing if you don't have the mentality to use that weapon." He gestured to the various workshop stations throughout the large room, there were even some full anvils and forges here. "So don't worry about whatever everyone else is crafting, craft a weapon that is yours, that feels right when you hold it in your grip and stand against humanity's enemy."

Professor Auburn gestured to a stack of books off to the side of the room. "I'm not expecting any of you to finish your weapons today, and for those of you who didn't think to learn how to craft, these books hold the knowledge necessary in order to craft a variety of mecha-shift and conventional weaponry."

With that every student got started in going around the room and grabbing books, raw materials and dust. By the end of the day, two students had finished their weapons, Fuchsia and Charr were both done.

Fuchsia's weapons were two Great-knives, designed to be held in a reverse fashion, and each being roughly a foot long. When put together they actually shifted around each-other into an extremely large quad-edged trench knife. Shaya actually shivered when she saw it.

'I'm pretty sure a wound from that thing would require surgery.' She thought as she stared at the blade.

Charr's weapon was a rather large Glaive, when placed with against the ground the weapon was taller than he was, which was around five feet. The head of the Glaive was easily two and a half feet long. When his weapon shifted the Shaft split into a series of short tubes, attached by a very long chain that extended the weapon's reach by four or five times. When shifted, the blade split from one blade into seven, giving the weapon's transformed state the appearance of a serrated whip like shape.

The sheer simplicity of Fuchsia's weapon, versus the complexity of Charr's were a beautiful and terrifying contrast.

Over the next few days, the remainder of the students slowly completed their own weaponry. Shaya began getting worried because none of the weapons she saw really... spoke to her, none of them felt right for her. Eventually she was flipping through one of the weapon books with a worried look on her face, when she was broken from her anxiety by a voice.

"Excuse me, are you alright?" She turned around and saw 'Mr. Anguis' standing there.

She immediately stood up and started scratching at the back of her head. "Of course, I'm fine. It's just..."

"You shouldn't worry about making any type of complex weapon or anything like that if it's not your style." He said with a calm, almost bored, tone. "Just look at my weapon, no transformations, no hidden gun. Just a sword." He said as he held up the product of his craft.

Calling the blade just a sword though, was honestly insulting to his skills in creating said blade. It was a simple katana, only the care and precision that went into its existence was unparalleled. She strongly believed that he could cut through a leaf the long way using that sword, and that even if it was struck with one of the far heavier weapons in the class, that the blade would be no worse for wear.

"It's beautiful." Shaya said while looking at it.

"Thank you. Honestly though, the only unique thing about this blade is the Clear Dust Crystal that I have running through it." He said while doing a practice swing with the weapon, and Shaya saw a small trail of dark red run through the air behind it.

"Clear Dust? I've never heard of that." That wasn't all that surprising though, she hardly ever used Dust outside of her every day appliances. He held up a small piece of an easily see through crystal.

"This is Clear Dust. It's the only type of Dust that doesn't degrade when in use. Unfortunately it's extremely rare. It's purpose is to imbue weapons and armor with the aura of the wielder, temporarily boosting their properties immensely. It also enhances the power of other elements of Dust when used in tandem with them." He casually tossed the crystal to Shaya and she caught it with a look of surprise on her face. "I didn't use as much as I thought I was going to in my weapon, and you seem like someone that wouldn't waste it." He turned and started to lazily walk away.

"Wait. I can't accept something like this from some random person." He stopped, looked over his shoulder at her and gave a thin smile.

"My name is Noctis Anguis, now I'm not some random person." Noctis held up his blade. "And this is Ventus et Ferrus. Have a good day, Shaya Ozpin." After that he left the workshop.

Shaya, still holding the Dust shard in hand, immediately sprinted over to the forge and materials. By the end of the day, she had crafted a simple, but elegant, short sword. It had a handle and guard similar to that of a dueling saber, and the Clear Dust crystal in its' core.

By this point she had been the only person left in the workshop except for Prof. Auburn, who was awaiting her to test out the weapon so he could register it as complete. She lifted the blade to eye level, and held it out forward in a position that showed it pulled back, ready to thrust forward.

The blade started to glow purple as she fed her aura into the weapon and as it's glow reached its' peak, she thrust the weapon forward and a thin streak of purple light shot out from its tip, leaving a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the room.

Shaya grinned and stared at the weapon that she crafted, as professor Auburn stared at the scene with wide eyes.

"My, my, Ms. Ozpin! That is truly a work of art, well done!" He praised as he pulled out his paper and clipboard. "Now, what might the name of this weapon of yours be?"

She held up her short sword and gave a couple of practice swings without putting her aura into it. "Anima Aciēs."

"Soul Edge? Seems like an appropriate name. Well, with this done you can finally move on to your primary classes, however you may want to wait till tomorrow as the day is almost over." The Professor advised his student. She gave him a little thanks and then left to go to the cafeteria to eat.

Conveniently this was at about the same time that the Grimm Studies Class was being dismissed, with Charr and Fuchsia being two of the students that came from it. They both paused when they saw the ridiculous amount of food Shaya had on her tray, but unlike with her first meal with her dad and Winter, Shaya's diet was far more balanced by this point. She had a variety of meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains in front of her.

They looked at her side and saw that she had a weapon with her. Looking at the elegant etchings in the metal they could only assume it was a finished product.

Charr was the one to approach and make her aware of their existence. "'Sup champ, you finally got your weapon done, eh?"

Shaya ceased her intake of food for a brief moment, looking at her new friends, and then held out Anima. "This is Anima Aciēs."

Fuchsia let out a low whistle looking at it. "Fancy, what'd you do to it to give it that name though?" Shaya demonstrated with putting some aura into it and just swiping across the air with it.

"Damn, a Clear Dust crystal, how'd you get your little hands on somethin' like that?" Charr asked as he looked at the blade. Shaya pouted slightly at the word 'little'. She looked around and spotted Noctis, and she jumped up and pointed straight at him.

"He gave me it, said he had extra." They followed her finger to the black and red clad 1st year. "Noctis!" She called while waving to him, he responded with a small wave as he left towards the dorms with his food in hand.

"I don't remember seeing that guy at the initiation." Fuchsia muttered to Charr, and he nodded in agreement.

"Maybe he got here late?" Charr suggested with a shrug. "Anyway, congrats on your weapon Shaya. I know when I finished Judging Light I was freaking psyched, hell I still am." Fuchsia nodded in agreement.

"My Daemon Clavus, are probably going to be the things I'm most proud of for a long time." Charr raised an eyebrow for a moment.

"I just realized somethin'. Why the hell are so many people naming their weapons in the weird ass language?" He asked.

"Because it sounds awesome." Shaya answered him.

"Fair Enough."

* * *

 _Shaya was in one of these again, they only occurred when she was asleep, but they most certainly weren't dreams. She thought that at first, but then they started getting clearer and clearer._

 _They started with her seeing through someone else's eyes, and that made them bad, then she started seeing them from a third person._

 _That made them worse._

 _She had a perfect view of war. War on a scale that no one on Remnant could even dream of. Cities that completely eclipsed Vale, wiped out of existence in only a single night. Homes, businesses, and the entire skyline above, up in flames._

 _At the center of all of it though, a roaring golden flame. Inside this flame, a single person stood._

 _He was tall, taller than most people she had seen, taller than even Uncle Ironwood. His hair stood upwards, spiking arches of golden locks making up the headpiece. His face had on it a cruel, malicious grin, and soulless green eyes that held no pupil, or was it no Iris? She couldn't tell. All she knew when she looked into those pools of green was one, key message that her instincts **SCREAMED** at her._

 _This is a predator._


	8. Chapter 8

Over her next few months at signal Academy, Shaya was trained in the arts of sword play, as her hand to hand skills were already exemplary. Her new friends were actually helping her in her studies. Fuschia helped her learn how physics worked, even though she herself defied its laws quite often. Charr tutored her on any type of history that didn't involve war and conflict, it was just too boring for her to remember.

Then there was Noctis, the tall, quiet, mysterious guy. He only really seemed to be sociable when there wasn't anyone else around but her. She chalked it up to him just not enjoying being around more than one person ay a time. However, he helped her learn sword play very well, despite not using the same type of blade or fighting style for said blade.

His method for training her was simple, allow her to get a good feel for the multiple different types of attacks, and then start attacking him. However, so as to make sure she never got sloppy with her swings, he instructed her to fight as slow as she needed to make sure she kept her stance, and he would move to counter, dodge, and parry but never strike back until the battle's pace picked up.

She questioned the legitimacy of this method at first, but eventually was forced to admit that it was rather effective. When they first started, anyone that was watching, namely Yang, would say that it looked like they were dancing with their weapons. Then they got faster and faster, until after about ten minutes, any movements with their weapons would barely look like blurs to even the fastest of observers. The duel that the two friends held with each other was beautiful to any spectator, as they eventually began channeling aura into their respective weapons, and the blades no longer were visible at the speed that both contenders were swinging. A blur of burnt red and purple slicing through the air as shockwaves of both left marks in the ground around them.

Shaya had a grin that most would reserve for nice peaceful time with their closest companions. While Noctis, had a calm, gentle smile. As though he were just taking a peaceful walk through a forest. After about forty five minutes of this practice, and a particularly powerful counter from Noctis, which ended up throwing Shaya through one of the trees constructed by Signal's arena, her scroll alerted her to the fact that her aura was in the red. She looked at the chart displaying his aura, and saw that it was still in the mid-green section. Which made her jaw simply drop.

"That was a wonderful match, Shaya." He congratulated her as he helped her up off the ground. "Your swordplay has improved immensely, we'll keep these practices going until you can either get me down into the lower yellow, or until you can last against me for three hours. Alright?" It wasn't arrogance, he simply was very good, and knew that. Shaya still felt insulted however, and realized that had Noctis been present for the initiation, he would've wiped the floor with her.

"Thanks." She muttered, and there was a brief moment of silence before they heard a loud rumble, and for once it was Shaya that looked surprised. "If you were getting hungry you could've just told me and we could've stopped and grabbed something from the cafeteria!" He shrugged and scratched the back of his head.

"You were doing so well that I didn't want to stop you." He noticed her slightly limping and his eyes widened for a moment. "Damn, that last hit must've been harder than I thought, you want me to carry you to the cafeteria?"

By this point he had learned about her incredible healing rate, but that still didn't make it okay to him for her to be in pain at that very moment. She'd be fine by the time they finished eating, so she climbed up his coat and onto his shoulders.

The two had gotten quite a few stares, the most intimidating freshman that year, was giving a piggy back ride to the adorable "Princess of Vale."

She honestly hated that nickname that the media had given her, but it wasn't all bad. The title belonging to a faunus, increased the quality of treatment that faunus received publicly in Vale noticeably. No shop owner in the entire kingdom wanted to risk losing business with the professors and students of the various huntsman academies, so even if their personal opinion didn't change, they wouldn't refuse a faunus that had the money to pay or the skill to work. A direct result of this was that the, recently fallen from grace, White Fang had significantly less operation in the Kingdom of Vale.

Shaya also learned that some of the people she considered to be part of her family, even if the only recognized member was her father, had some rather interesting titles. Qrow, who to her had always been incredibly silly, if a bit inappropriate, held the title "Bloody Crow of Signal." People even had their own little saying for him, "The Bloody Crow only leaves his nest when Death is near." That sounded... ominous, but also pretty awesome, it made him sound like one of those Dark Heroes from Arc-Knight's comic books.

Back on topic, she ate with her sparring partner and friend, having casual conversation. "So, why weren't you here during initiation?" She asked him. "You would've wiped the floor with everyone in just about every test except for physical strength." He, for his part merely laughed as he wolfed down his own rather large, though not as large as Shaya's, meal.

"I actually was here that day, I just didn't care enough to get above an average score on any of the tests." The snake-eyed boy told her.

"What? Why?!"

"Shaya, these schools track a lot of things, but what they track more than anything is improvement. If I start with an average score, and end at the top of our class, that's going to draw a lot more attention than if I'd just rode the high scores the whole time." He explained with a small smirk on his face, a single fang poking out from his lips. He pulled up his scroll and looked at the time, 7:30 PM. "It's starting to get late, I live with my guardian nearby, so I need to get going home. Have a good day, Ms. Ozpin." He bid his farewell before he went his own way.

* * *

Shaya unlocked the door to her dorm with her scroll, and before she could even walk through the door she heard her roommate call out to her.

"So, have fun with your boyfriend?" Yang teased. Shaya, for her part, didn't blush at all. Instead, she simply had an uncomfortable look on her face as she glared at her friend.

"He's just my sparring partner, that hardly constitutes as a date, Yang." She glowered.

"Ah, yes. How could I have possibly forgotten that after every sparring practice, the winner must carry the loser via piggy back to a nice quiet meal together." Yang shot back with a sarcastic tone and a grin on her face.

"He's nearly twice my height!" Shaya cried, a small amount of red creeping onto her face as she realized how it must've looked to everyone else.

"That explains the limp." That was the tipping point and Shaya's face went pure crimson as she shoved her face straight into the pillow on her bed and screamed. "Heh, I win."

* * *

Noctis Anguis, first year of Signal Academy, prodigy in aura control and sword based combat, wielder of Ventus et Ferrus, master of the sword art Ventus et Umbra, walked into a building that looked like it would be marked for demolition soon.

"Teacher, I'm back from school!" He called out to the ruins, receiving no response at first. Then another boy, like himself, walked in. He wore a black suit jacket with red markings on it, and had hair that was two different shades of red, he wore a bone like mask with red markings on it over his eyes.

"She isn't here right now, Ventus." The guy told him. Noctis immediately moved his hand to the guard of his sword.

"Why are you here, Adam?" The Snake asked the Bull, who calmly dismissed the hostility with a shrug and a wave of his hand.

"Our leader's worried you forgot about your assignment, after all, you've gotten pretty chummy with the little Princess." Noctis allowed his grip on his weapon to relax.

"Don't you worry 'general,'" Noctis drawled the word with venom, "I haven't deviated from my course, merely securing a foothold should suspicion arise, tell teacher I'm still perfectly capable of this job."

Adam nodded to his fellow student, and started to walk out of the building, stopping in the doorway. "I hope you get done with this assignment soon, after all, the White Fang needs its' Ventus et Mortem back. Oh, and Blake says hi." The two regarded each other with a smile before a freshly formed red vortex appeared in front of Adam and he calmly stepped through it. Noctis' smile faded only slightly as he looked down at his sword.

"Yeah, that's what I am, a Wind of Death." He took a deep breath in and released it after a few moments, a manic grin on his face. "The snake in the night with a silver tongue."

* * *

 _3 Months Later_

Shaya was woken up in the middle of the night by her scroll ringing wildly, she lifted it up to see that apparently it was an unknown number. She would've hung up right then and there, but they'd already woken her up so she'd at least see what they wanted.

"Hello?" She asked tiredly.

"Hello, Shaya Ozpin, right?" Came the voice of a teenaged boy from the other end.

"Yes." She answered, still only half awake.

"My name is Lie Ren, we were training partners in martial arts a few years back, when you left you said to call if I ever needed anything." It took Shaya a few moments of processing due to her grogginess, but the moment the memory hit her she jumped out of her bed. Nearly waking Yang, she silently slipped out of the room and went for a walk.

"Oh yeah! What's up?" She asked her old friend.

"Nothing good, I'm afraid." The boy, now that she listened, sounded far more tired and... broken... than her. "Our village... It was overrun by grimm." Shaya's breath froze. "Nora and I made it out, and I know one of my distant family members has a place in Mistral, but getting there will take a while and Nora... Nora doesn't have anyone left."

"Oh my god." Shaya was completely still.

"I called to ask if you could maybe help us get to Mistral, it would only be a few hundred Lien, and I'd try to pay you and your father back as soon as possible-" The boy's begging was cut off as Shaya immediately responded.

"That's not going to happen." She told him sternly, and had she not continued his heart would've broken into a thousand pieces. "You and Nora are going to stay in my room at Beacon, I'm attending Signal, so I'm not more than a bullhead's ride away from it at any moment. My room is big enough for a small family, so sharing it with some of my friends won't hurt at all." Ren was completely silent for a moment.

"I... I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." She said as she grabbed her actual clothing from her room and immediately bolted for the Beacon Air-Station. "Stay on the line, I don't want you to be alone right now, where are you?" She could hear him softly crying, whether it was at the relief of the stress that had to have been plaguing him, or the full reality of everything that must've happened finally sinking in, she couldn't tell.

"We're- we're in a refugee station in the northwest side of Vale. Nora's asleep right now in the other room."

"I'll be there within the next thirty minutes, just keep talking to me buddy."

 **A/N: So... do you hate me yet? This is honestly what I've become pretty sure of for Nora and Ren's backstory. As for Noctis, or should I say Ventus? What's his story? Well, now, why would I go and give away his role in the things to come? Find out the rest of your questions by asking them in the reviews, or just tuning in next time, on Remnant Ball-Z.**


	9. Chapter 9

Shaya was not in the right mind set for everything. She hadn't even changed into her proper clothing until she was on the bullhead. None of this was anything she expected to deal with, she hadn't thought of all the people that would get hurt while she was still in her huntress training, she had only thought of how capable she would be of protecting people once she was done. She never thought that the ones that taught her how to fight and the ones that housed her during her stay would ever die.

' _Torvild... Shenma...'_ She thought to herself as the bullhead started its descent to the refugee station's landing pads. As she got off of the bullhead, the pilot called her attention.

"Will there by anything else, Ms. Ozpin?" He asked her with the politeness she's become used to from the pilots she's requisitioned.

"Wait here for about ten minutes, I'm going to be bringing some people to Beacon. Alright?" The pilot simply nodded. Shaya never wasted their time unless she planned to pay them back in some way or another, despite how completely unnecessary it is to do so.

She looked around the center, noting that it was a lot more empty than she thought it'd be. This left her with only two thoughts. That it was uncommon for Huntsmen and Huntresses to not make it in time to save a village, or that whenever a village was attacked, there were hardly ever survivors.

Finally, Shaya spotted the two that she'd come here looking for. Ren was already roughly 5 feet tall, and Nora was roughly 4 and a half. They were both asleep on a bench, Nora with her head on Ren's shoulder, and Ren's head resting on hers. They both looked exhausted, and she didn't want to wake them, so she didn't. She went to the caretaker at the station and asked them where her friends property was, because she wanted to load it up on the bullhead they were going to be taking.

After the items were all loaded up and ready to go, she headed back to the bench where her friends slept, lifted Nora and placed her into Ren's lap, then lifted both of them at once and gently and quietly carried them to the bullhead. The two of them combined didn't even weigh 300 pounds, so she could easily lift both of them. Once they were on board, she put them back into the exact same position she'd found them in, then she'd shut the doors to the bullhead, in the hope that would muffle the sound enough to not wake them.

Unfortunately, while the sound had been muffled, the sudden feeling of lift was enough to wake both of them. Ren's eyes immediately widened in panic before they settled on Shaya, where they calmed down significantly. Nora, on the other hand, immediately flipped her shit.

"Who- what- WHERE ARE WE?!" She shouted as she began hyperventilating, and whereas Shaya started to panic in an effort to try and calm her down, Ren calmly placed a hand on her shoulder and she seemed to instantly settle into a more peaceful position. Her eyes eventually met Shaya's and widened significantly. "Oh. My. GOD!"

"Hello Nora, you might not remember but-" whatever Shaya had to say was immediately cut short as Nora crushed Shaya's head directly into her chest with a monstrous hug.

"You're still so freaking small and adorable!" The hammer wielding girl squealed. As Shaya hung there, suspended slightly off the ground with her arms hanging limply at her side and her head being smushed into her friends' chest, she only had one thought.

'This is fine.'

* * *

"This is a SCHOOL?!" The Valkyrie shouted as she walked through the campus with her friends. "You live HERE?!"

Shaya adopted a small smirk as she regarded her friend's question. "Well, I AM the headmaster's daughter." Both of her companions briefly froze, and she wondered if she made a mistake.

Nora pressed both hands onto either side of her face and squished her face together. "Oh my god that must be awesome."

Meanwhile, Ren understood the full gravity of that statement. He'd tried to beg for money from one of the wealthiest, most powerful people on the planet, and instead of being rejected and treated as a lesser being, he was being offered a home. Offered residence in one of the four most respected Huntsmen schools in the world. He gave a soft smile towards his old training partner and nodded as they continued towards one of the buildings of the campus.

"The sun's going to be rising soon, and since a good number of the students here get up at dawn for training, the chefs in the cafeteria are probably already preparing breakfast." Shaya told them. "You guys are probably starving, but don't worry, I called ahead and let Professor Peach know we're coming. She makes amazing pancakes, and she's always more than happy to make breakfast."

They walked into the cafeteria just in time to see a teacher with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a pink dress, walk up to a table setting down an enormous plate filled with pancakes, and a couple bottles of syrup.

"Professor Peach!" Shaya waved to the teacher. The teacher shut her eyes with a bright smile as she walked over and pat Shaya on the head.

"Hello little Shy." She said gently. "Good morning to you, Mr. Ren, Ms. Valkyrie. I do hope that you all enjoy your breakfast." Peach, greeted them all shortly before departing.

"That was-" Ren started, before being cut off by Nora.

"Weird." She finished.

Shaya spoke up, as she walked over to take her seat at the table. "Professor Peach is really nice, but she never really says much, sort of lives by the whole 'Actions speak louder than words,' motto." She put a stack of ten pancakes on a plate for Nora, five for Ren, and fifteen for herself. "Feel free to take more if you're still hungry, but trust me when I say that Peach's recipe is really filling."

The two survivors of their villages attack were indeed, very hungry. They both dug in, Nora almost as viciously as Shaya was at first, and Ren was almost as aggressive with his food as she was now. Shaya, had developed good table manners, but still had an incredible appetite. So, unless there was conversation to be had, she delved back into the habit of simply tearing through her food.

As they were nearly finished with each of their own portions, suddenly three more of the delicious delicacies were lifted off of the center tray and to a plate that now rested next to Shaya's.

"Should I feel hurt that you contacted Professor Peach about your visit, and not your own father?" Ozpin asked with a teasing tone. Shaya laughed and playfully punched him in the arm, to which Nora laughed as well, meanwhile Ren immediately shot into a sitting position that she'd seen her father use when eating dinner with politicians. Shaya's Dad noticed this too, and immediately waved down the tension building in Ren's mind. "Please, no formalities, I'm simply a man eating breakfast with his daughter. No need to add on more stress to your life, right now."

Ren's mind processed the whole situation for a moment. He then spotted Ozpin gently rubbing the spot that Shaya had punched him. The thought that this Huntsman, who's skill and experience eclipsed even veterans, had just been hurt by a punch from a girl that could be mistaken for an 8 year old, was extremely funny. So, Ren did what anyone does when they see something funny, he laughed openly for a moment with a genuine smile and relaxed his position.

"Honestly, Professor Ozpin, I can never repay Shaya for what she is doing for Nora and I-" He was cut off by Shaya.

"There's nothing to repay. I'm planning to spend my life doing for complete strangers what I'm doing for you. If I asked each and every person I'm going to be helping for anything, I wouldn't be deserving of the title I seek to achieve." She told them all with a calm smile across her face and her purple eyes shining.

"However," Ozpin started, "if you do want to repay my daughter for what she's done for you, there's only one answer." Ren and Nora were listening with their full attention. "Attend my school. Once you feel you are strong enough or skilled enough to attend, take the combat entrance exam. If you pass that, then the only thing left will be to pass the actual initiation, and you can assist Shaya once she herself graduates from Beacon as a Huntress."

Shaya's eyes widened, she didn't want her friends to risk their lives for her, when they could be doing something else, something they enjoy, withe their lives. "Dad-"

"We're in." Nora said with a grin on her face. "I've always wanted to get paid for smashing things, and Ren's always wanted to help people. If we can do both of those things WHILE hanging out with one of our friends, then why wouldn't we."

Whatever scolding Shaya had been about to say to her father died in her throat, as she instead just chose to stare at her old friends. She stood up from the table, a smile on her face. "Well then, if everyone's done with their meal. I'd like to show you two to my- our, to our room." The grin that she and Nora had threatened to split their faces in two. "Although, you might need to move out once you get your own team here at Beacon."

* * *

Two and a Half Years Later

Shaya Ozpin, age: 16, Height: 4 feet 2 inches, Eye Color: Purple, Weapon: Anima Aciēs (Shortsword), Semblance: Perfect Aura Manipulation, Father: Professor Ozpin (First Name/ Last Name unconfirmed). These are the only details about her that were open to the rest of the world. These were the only things that anyone that wanted to could find out as an absolute truth.

Shaya had recently become very, VERY aware of the cruelties of the outside world, and how fortunate she was to have Ozpin be the one to find her that day. She didn't like it. Recently she'd become obsessed with learning about crime, war, and grimm. She wasn't stupid, she knows that there is a black market, and that anything is considered valuable to someone on the black market.

When it's possessed by a criminal, you can buy anything; weapons, dust, transcripts, and finally, information. The very last one was what she was after.

The White Fang had always been quiet in Vale, but recently they'd gone completely silent, that wasn't good news. That meant they'd be up to something pretty soon. Unlike with the rest of the world, whenever they performed an operation in Vale, it was always targeting the same company. The Schnee Dust Corporation.

Shaya didn't like the Schnee's company, the only Schnee she'd gotten a positive impression of so far had been Winter, and since then hadn't heard a single good thing about any of them beyond superficial attributes.

All of that being said, whenever the White Fang attacked a Dust shop, or a delivery of Cargo, there's no way it would've affected the Schnee's themselves very much. They'd still be sitting pretty in the lap of luxury. No, the only people negatively effected by the Dust robberies were innocent civilians. Dust prices go through the roof as the stock plummet, and the Huntsmen and Huntresses that need the Dust can't get it. They don't have the proper supplies, and they don't go off on as many missions. They don't go off on missions, and innocent people die at the claws of the grimm.

This made the White Fang her enemy. If they just stuck to the Schnee executives, the ones calling the shots, and left everyone else alone, she might've even supported them. However, because they couldn't keep their eyes on their only real enemy, she now was wandering through the shady part of Vale. Looking for a club where an information broker is supposed to be based.

"'The Three Bears,' classy." She read the sign in the front of the building as she strolled up to the front door, wear a tall man in a black and red suit with sunglasses stopped her.

"Hold up, kid. I can't let you into a place like this." He said as he stood in her way. Shaya pouted at him as she shuffled in place and her eyes watered.

"But I really need to go to the bathroom!" She said as she made her tail wrap around her waist. The bouncer's eyes widened behind his glasses and he sighed before opening the door.

"The bathrooms are on the left as soon as you get inside, if you're not back out within ten minutes I'm going to come in to get you."

"Thank you, Mister!" She said childishly just before the doors shut, which then her innocent little pout turned into a devious grin. "Thank you, very much."

Ignoring any strange looks she got, she walked straight up to the counter where the barkeep was serving drinks. The moment he saw her, his eyes widened and he looked like he was about to yell in the direction of the doorman.

"Now, now, Junior. There's no need for that." Shaya said as she dropped a thousand Lien on the counter. "I have a few questions that need to be answered." Junior's eyes widened and he looked at her more clearly.

"You're that headmaster's kid, aren't you?" Shaya clapped her hands together in response, congratulating him.

"Good job, you know what most of Vale knows. I'm looking for something that not just anyone could tell me, though." She said as she dropped another thousand on the table. "I believe Vale is a little overdue for a White Fang raid, don't you?"

Junior's eyes widened a little further, then relaxed significantly. "Maybe a little, but I'm going to need at least five thousand for info like that." He said with a businessman's smile. Shaya returned the facial expression, with a sharp edge in her smirk. She dropped an additional five hundred Lien on the table.

"You'll get the second half once I've got the information and confirmed its' legitimacy." She said with a completely genuinely friendly expression. Junior thought it over for a moment, and then, likely underestimating the cunningness of the childlike teenager, accepted the cash.

"There's going to be a robbery of a Schnee train cart next Tuesday. It's going through Forever Falls. I'll expect the second half by next Friday." He said gruffly.

Shaya gave him a nice friendly smile and a nod. "Of course, I'll bring it in myself by next Thursday if the info holds out." She got up from her seat and started to walk away before turning back towards him. "Oh, and hears some info, free of charge. A friend of mine is going to be coming by Sunday, and she's going to be looking for one 'Raven Branwen.' If you aren't one hundred percent sure you know her location by that time, I'd take out some insurance on this place, and your health."

Shaya left the club. Giving a nice, childlike "thank you" to the doorman. She continued on her way back to Signal. She needed to get ready for next week, she had a train to catch.

 **A/N: Well then, it took me a while to write that last part, but please tell me what you all think.**


	10. Chapter 10

Noctis Anguis was taking notes in his grimm studies class, with his small companion sitting in the seat next to him. To anyone other than him or the teacher, it would look like she was asleep, but she simply retained sound well enough that even while asleep she could learn more than most people. She told him at the beginning of class that she had something to tell him afterwards, she needed his help with something.

Needed, being the operative word. Shaya had never told him that she needed anything. It was always "I want your help," or "I want to learn how to use a sword." She was very careful with her words that way. For her to say that she needed his help with something, meant that it was something incredibly serious.

If he was going to build a foothold in Vale outside of the Fang, this would be a very good start.

The class was dismissed eventually, and as soon as they got out, Shaya grabbed his hand and led him off somewhere that even she wouldn't be able to spy on their conversation with her enhanced hearing.

"Alright, what's this all about?" Noctis asked, concern evident in his voice.

Shaya leaned further towards him, and when she got as close as she could considering her height, she softly spoke. "I want your help stopping a White Fang raid tomorrow."

For a moment, Noctis' mind went into overdrive. There's no way in hell she could possibly know about his affiliations with the White Fang, right? If she did then he would've woken up one morning with huntsmen knocking at his door. So that could only mean that she did, simply find out about one, and wanted his help with putting a stop to it.

Now there was only the matter of which raid she was referring to, there would be dozens of small ones all over Vale to distract people from the train heist. In order to accurately give a response, he'd need more information.

"I'm gonna need a little more to go on than just, a White Fang raid." He said with a bored tone, to which Shaya smiled, as this meant that she might actually have a partner when she goes to stop the robbery.

"They're going to try to steal an entire train cart full of Dust, the train is going to be passing through Forever Falls tomorrow, and that place has a lot of spots where someone could jump onto a moving vehicle. I'm guessing we should get authorization to protect it once it leaves the station before the forest." Noctis nodded to himself, but inside he was groaning in frustration.

"If they're going to be stealing an entire train cart, then that probably means that they;re not sending any type of grunt or anything like that. They're probably sending people who could go toe to toe with a Huntsman." He warned her. "Do you think we can really handle something like that?"

Shaya gave a determined stare at her best friend... wow, she hadn't actively thought of him as that before. It was only now that she actually truly needed something from him that the thought hit her. He'd been her guide ever since coming to Signal. "Noctis, if they get away with that much Dust, the prices will go through the roof until the next shipment. If that happens, the only people that will be getting hurt will be the huntsmen and the innocents protected by them. If we're going to be meant to protecting them when we get older, then I don't want the guilt of not helping those people now to be on my head."

Noctis listened to her reasoning, and he smiled. He wholeheartedly agreed with that reasoning. He didn't agree with Adam's idea of attacking the Schnee's business ventures. The Snake-Eyed boy would much rather be assassinating company officials, but no, he needs to just slaughter machines so that they can take resources that they don't need. That was about to change, "I'm in, Shaya," after all, things were about to get interesting.

* * *

Shaya and Noctis, were both asleep on the train cart filled with Dust, which probably would've stayed that way had they not heard the sounds of battle from one of the outside carts. They rushed to open the door, just in time for one of the Atlesian knights to fly straight over Shaya's head.

The ones responsible for this stood in front of them. A man dressed in black and red with a unique Fang mask, and a Dust Saber, similar in shape to Ventus et Ferrus. A bull faunus wearing red, now isn't that ironic?

His partner was a girl who was about Noctis' age, she had long wavy black hair, and wore a bow over what Shaya guessed were cat ears if her eyes were anything to go by. Shaya legitimately didn't know what her weapon was, all she could say was that it was interesting. Her black and white clothing was very slimming. Shaya couldn't help but stare for a moment.

Their reactions to seeing Noctis and Shaya was an interesting one as well. Both of their eyes widened, she couldn't see the Bull's eyes, but she could tell from how he took a half a step backwards.

"Surrender, and you will be guaranteed as much leniency as I can get you. Flee, and we will not pursue. Fight, and we will capture at least one of you." Shaya listed their options as she held her sword at the ready, with Noctis in a position to draw his at a moments notice. She didn't notice the slight nod that Noctis gave them.

"Stay out of our way, we'd rather not spill the blood of our own kind." The Bull answered. To which Shaya took a more agressive stance.

"Yet you have no issue whatsoever with being the reason innocents die, as long as they're either human, or you don't need to see it?" The Cat took another step backwards in surprise, before she opened her mouth to argue back.

"What are you talking about?! We're attacking the SDC, we've never done anything to hurt any innocents in Vale." It seemed like she was honestly telling that to herself more than anyone else.

"You're a fool." Noctis spoke with strength. "If you honestly believe that you're actions here only harm the SDC then you've forgotten one very important thing about how businesses work. Supply and DEMAND!" He shouted. "Innocent people need the Dust that you're planning on stealing, because Huntsmen need it in order to protect them! The White Fang are the ones responsible for the recent increase of border villages being massacred!" The Cat-Faunus was visibly shaken by that revelation, meanwhile the Bull-Faunus didn't even seem fazed.

"The Tree of Liberty must be fertilized from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." He said as he got ready to begin combat.

Shaya's eyes got a fierce glow about them and her weapon as well as her entire sword-arm began to glow an eerie violet hue. "Those people, those innocent bystanders, had no patriotic bond to your revolution. They had no ties to the Tyrants that oppress our kind! There was NO reason, that they needed to die for your god-damned war!" She stared at the Cat-Faunus one more time and spoke an ultimatum. "I was willing to just let you go before, and I still am now, but only if you do NOT stop me in taking in this psychopath. Leave now, Surrender, or I WILL take you in. Dead or Alive."

Shaya had a grasp on the concept of Death. Because of that, she was aware of the fact that there were simply some people that couldn't be reasoned with, that they needed to either be put behind bars or put down.

With that declaration made, Shaya took off at her opponent. She noticed just soon enough that everything red on his body glowed brightly, and ducked under a swing that packed enough force to leave cuts on objects physically out of its' reach. She turned, placing both hands on the ground in an attempt to use the same move she'd used to strike Yang into the air three years ago. Only to have him grab her foot and nearly impale her, before Noctis came in and deflected the blade with his own, slashing at their opponents hand.

That's when they noticed something, the cart they were on started moving slower, they turned and saw the Cat-Faunus standing on the cart that had the actual cargo with a solemn look on her face. She'd severed the link between the two parts of the train.

"Noctis!" Shaya shouted as she sprinted at her friend, he nodded and poured his aura into his hands. She jumped and landed with her feet in the palms of his hands, and was thrown straight at the car that had began putting distance between them. She turned her head in mid-air and saw the two katana users dive straight back into melee combat, before turning her vision forward and landing right before the Cat-Faunus with her weapon at the ready.

Said girl immediately put her hands up in a surrendering gesture. "I'm not trying to take the Dust still, I just... I just want to put as much distance between me and him as I can right now." She said hurriedly. Shaya sheathed her weapon and stared heavily at the girl.

"What's your name." She demanded, and the girl was taken aback for a moment.

"What?" She asked.

"Your. Name. What is it?"

"Blake Belladonna." Blake answered, still under the stress of the whole day she's had. Shaya exhaled heavily, and adopted a bright smile.

"Well then, Blake Belladonna, how do you plan on repaying your debt to the innocents you've helped to put in danger." She asked, the same smile still present on her face, and Blake had already had an idea that she'd been planning on.

"I'm going to become a Huntress." Shaya's smile only got wider.

"Good answer, get off this train before it reaches the station, and go prepare for the Beacon entrance exam in a week. If you don't fulfill both of these things, I'm going to need to take you in." Blake nodded and after a few more minutes of traveling by train, she leapt off the side.

It would be another forty five minutes before the train would reach the station, and while they lost quite a few Atlesian Knights, the entirety of the Dust was accounted for. She was a bit worried about Noctis, but after about 20 minutes she got a text from him saying that his opponent got away, but that he was fine aside a few superficial wounds. The day, overall had been a success, she'd even get a payment from the Schnee Dust company for protecting the cargo, something like ten thousand Lien. Only one thing would put a damper on it, and that would be when she got off of the train.

"Well, now. Oz is going to have a field day about this."

Shaya stared wide eyed and scratched the back of her head nervously. "Eh, hi Qrow." She was going to be in so much trouble.

* * *

Qrow dropped Shaya off in front of a Police Station. "Go on," he told her, "your dad and 'Aunt Goodwitch' are already inside." Shaya wandered through the police station, and as she was directed towards the questioning room, she couldn't help but dread the earful she was inevitably going to get. Her father would let her off easy, no doubt about it. Aunt Goodwitch on the other hand... best not to think about it. As she got closer and closer to said room she heard talking coming from inside of it.

"You're Professor Ozpin. You're the Headmaster at Beacon." Ruby? What's Ruby doing here?

She could hear her father sigh from outside the room. "Honestly, I do wish my daughter would talk more about me to her friends." Oh, her Dad was setting up one of these moments. Alright, she could play along.

"What?" She could hear Ruby ask in confusion. "Who's your-"

Shaya cut her off by running straight into the room while gleefully shouting "Daddy!" and jumping straight at him to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug. Meanwhile, Goodwitch, subtly snapped a picture of the entire scene, including Ruby's utterly shocked expression.

"SHAYA?!" The crimsonette shouted as she jumped up from her seat.

"Hello there, Puppy Eyes!" Shaya called out her occasional nickname for her friend.

"Your Dad is Professor Ozpin!?" She shouted in shock.

Shaya gave a deadpan expression powerful enough to shatter stone. "No, my Dad is someone else with the last name 'Ozpin.'" She chuckled for a moment. "Honestly, all the times you've seen and heard my last name and not once did you connect the dots? I wonder if Yang knows." She stared at Ruby seriously. "If Yang doesn't know, you're not telling her. Okay?" Ruby nodded in response and they were both returned to focus by Ozpin clearing his throat.

"The both of you have shown exemplary morality, will, and combat prowess." He began. "Because of the both of your actions today, I find it perfectly acceptable to offer you both an early enrollment to Beacon Academy." The girls for a moment both got a smirk and looked at eachother, then in sync they both said.

"What, did you stop a Dust robbery too?" They then both froze, staring at each other in absolute shock.

"I take it that means that you accept?"

* * *

"Oh, I can't believe the both of you are coming to Beacon with me," Yang exclaimed as she dragged both of them into a small group hug, "this is the best day ever!"

Ruby tried to let out a plea for mercy from the bear hug, but it only came out as a pained squeak due to Shaya returning the group hug with full force. The hug was quickly released and Yang was about to say something else when Shaya was tackled to the ground full force by a blur of pink, white, and orange.

"SHAYAAAAAA!" Nora exclaimed as she pretty much crushed her tiny friend in her grasp. Quickly dropping her from the hug and choosing to jump and spin around while holding her by the arms, she continued to chant her friends name until eventually her calm counterpart arrived and managed to separate them.

Ren then chose to spread his arms out with a thin smile on his face, and Shaya leapt to him fully accepting the invitation for a hug of his own. After they parted, Shaya looked up at him with a look of surprise evident.

"What are you guys doing here, I was expecting to get glomped by Nora as soon as the airship touched down at Beacon." She told them.

"Well, I knew you would know that I would normally do something like that so I decided 'Hey what if we're already on the ship, there's NOOOO way she'd expect that.' So that's what I did and Ren here anted to come along to 'make sure I didn't suffocate you by accident,' which is ridiculous by the way I mean my chest isn't nearly large enough to do that to someone now this blond haired girl on the other hand-" Ren slapped a hand over Nora's mouth before someone actually managed to understand what she was saying besides Shaya.

"Riiiiiiight." Yang drawled out before turning to Shaya. "So, shortstuff, mind introducing us to your friends?" Shaya's eyes twitched for a moment before she relaxed and gestured to her two oldest friends.

"Yang, Ruby, these are Ren and Nora. The oldest friends I have that are actually near my age." She then turned her hand to the two that she'd actually spent the most time with. "Ren, Nora, the anthropomorphic puppy with the red hood is Ruby, and the one with puke on her shoe is Yang." Yang had been in the middle of reaching out for a handshake when she registered how Shaya introduced her.

"Wait, WHAT?!"

 **A/N: FINALLY, I'M DONE WITH THE PROLOGUE!**


	11. Chapter 11: The Shining Beacon

As the ship touched down on the Beacon Landing pads, Shaya spotted two things in the crowd of people that rushed to leave. The first was a blonde haired boy that rushed to a nearby trashcan to continue emptying his stomach. The second was a familiar black haired kitty-cat that seemed to be trying her best to blend into the crowd while reading a book.

She turned her head to her friends and said simply. "I'll meet up with you guys later, I need to talk with someone privately really quickly." They all gave her little nods of acknowledgement and went back to their own idle chat as Ren and Nora split from the group as well.

Shaya quickly walked over towards Blake and was certain that the girl knew she was coming, so once she got close enough she simply started talking.

"Glad to see you here," the girl jumped so apparently she hadn't noticed Shaya's approach, "I didn't see you on the ship so I was worried I had made a mistake."

Blake shuffled slightly nervously and her bow twitched as she looked around for anyone else that might know of her secret. "I'm not going to run away from the crimes I've committed. This is something I need to do."

"Good, good." Shaya said just before her eyes narrowed into a serious glare. "I only have one more thing to say to you then. A number of my friends are going to be attending this first year with us, which means you'll more than likely be placed on a team with at least one of them." She lightly channelled her aura, giving her a slight purple mist coming off of her. "If you do decide to try to leave, to go back to them. You better do so without hurting anyone I care about, or else I'll have to make a few calls to my Uncle. General Ironwood."

Blake's eyes widened in recognition and fear of the name, before she sharply nodded at the conditions set by the significantly smaller teenager. Instantaneously, the glare and the menacing aura vanished, replaced by the cheery smile that Shaya is known for.

"Good, then I suppose I should let you..." Shaya sniffed at the air for a moment. "Schnee." She said as her eyes narrowed. Winter had been one of Ironwood's specialists for a while now, so there wouldn't be any unscheduled visits or surprises from her. Meaning that this was a Schnee she didn't know, and therefore didn't like.

"Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?!" There it is, both her and Blake's heads whipped in the direction of the voice. "This isn't your ordinary combat school. It's not just sparring and practicing, we're here to fight monsters, so, watch where you're going!" Blake looked at Shaya and saw that one of her eyes were twitching. She then looked at who the heiress was yelling at and spotted the girl in the red hood that Shaya had been talking to earlier.

"Hey I said I was sorry, princess!" Ruby said snidely as she started to glare back at the entitled heiress.

Blake opened her mouth to say something after picking up a vial of red dust that had rolled over by her foot, but was cut off by an extremely annoyed purple eyed girl. "Hey, Snow-Bitch!" Shaya exclaimed as she stormed over to the two, the profanity briefly causing all parties involved to widen their eyes for a moment. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Weiss, for her part, readjusted to the newcomer rather quickly. "Excuse me? Do you know who I am?!" She asked the approaching faunus with a glare of her own.

"Excuse me?" Shaya started in a mocking tone. "What makes you think I care who you are?" Shaya got right up close to the white-haired girl, and despite the height difference, gave off a rather imposing tone. She then spoke very calmly and very quietly. "Until you show me otherwise, you're just a pampered little kid that got everything she wanted."

"That isn't-"

"In fact, if it weren't for the fact that my father personally looks over every single new students' transcripts, I would be willing to guess that you just bought fake ones." She grabbed the taller girl by the collar of her dress. "The fact that you're even here speaks of your skill, but clearly not of your intelligence." The Schnee heiress took that to heart and her eyes narrowed further and she started trying to remove the smaller girls grip.

"How dare you?! I am Weiss-"

"Schnee, heiress of the SDC, the largest and arguably most corrupt Dust distribution company in the world." Shaya continued as she recited the line robotically. "Anyway, back onto what I was saying before. You're being here at the lowest age possible for normal admission speaks volumes of your skill in combat." Shaya flinged a finger in the direction of Ruby. "Her name is Ruby Rose, daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long and Summer Rose, an S-class huntress, apprentice of Qrow Branwen, the best Scythe-Wielder in the world as well as an S-class Huntsman." With each word Weiss' eyes widened further and further. "You asked her if she was a bit young to be at Beacon, and she is, two years in fact. Wouldn't that mean that she is significantly above your level if she was admitted so much earlier than is recommended?" The heiress looked in disbelief momentarily, before her pride kicked in again.

"Well then, she must be some kind of disappointment if she can't help but fall into someone else's luggage within minutes of reaching the school!" Weiss shot back, with Ruby shrinking further and further into the background as the argument got more heated. Neither Weiss nor Shaya noticed the blonde haired boy from the ship come by and help her up before the both of them walked off on their own somewhere.

"And simply falling into the luggage caused that explosion?" Shaya shot back at her new rival. "That sounds like someone doesn't seal highly volatile substances properly, despite being part of the family that is entrusted to handle it!"

The two continued to bicker at each other continuously until they noticed the area around them start to thin in terms of people being present. Eventually settling to the Heiress storming off with her luggage, claiming that she had "better things to do, than to waste time arguing with a faunus." To which Shaya, rather immaturely, tripped the girl with her tail as she turned to walk away.

After they left each others presence, Shaya decided to follow Ruby's scent, eventually finding her and the blonde haired boy from the ship talking. She actually paused at that for a moment. Ruby Rose, the girl more comfortable talking to weapons than talking to people, was talking to a boy. Most guys she'd met throughout her time at Signal, Noctis not included, never really started conversation with girls they'd had no previous interaction with unless they were... interested.

"So why'd you help me out back there? In the courtyard, I mean." Ruby asked the knight looking boy. To which he responded with a nonchalant shrug.

"Eh, why not? My mom always says, 'strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.'" He recited. Shaya's brain completely froze for a moment. In that one sentence she knew enough about this knight to make several connections.

Optimistic look on pretty much all of existence, check.

Voice with a high-enough pitch to scream like a girl if startled, check.

One hundred percent Momma's boy, check.

Shaya immediately sprinted from the distance she had from the two and jumped, throwing her arm around the boy's neck in a hug that threw them both to the ground. "Arc-Knight!" She shouted with glee. To which the boy, very startled, cried in surprise.

"Sh-Shaya!?" He exclaimed as they both tumbled onto the pavement, ending with Shaya's forehead and nose pressed against his and she was looking him straight in the eyes.

"Hi." They both cracked wide grins as she got up and helped him up, that was when she noticed that he was roughly as tall as Noctis. "Woah, you got biiig." She drawed out childishly. She had only ever seen what he looked like once time, and that was when they were both eleven years old.

His response to the comment was to playfully pat her on the head. "You don't look like you've changed at all. Still just like the adorable little psycho that I always played the Mechit mod for Dustcraft with." That was when Shaya's eyes widened as she didn't feel the presence of something she'd gotten so used to at her time in combat schools. She turned her head to Ruby and pointed in the direction of the schools assembly halls.

"Hey, Puppy-Eyes, you go on to the assembly, I need to catch up with Jaune here really quickly." Ruby looked kinda worried for a moment but nodded in affirmation, and left on her way to try and find her sister.

The moment Ruby was gone, Shaya rounded on Jaune with a shining violet hand. Laying it directly on his shoulder, she began muttering to herself just loud enough for Jaune to hear, and be confused by. "There is no peace, only passion. Through passion we gain strength. Through strength we gain power. Through power we gain victory. Through victory, our chains are broken. Let your soul set you free."

The moment she was finished, the glow from her hand faded, and Jaune was briefly surrounded in a pure white light. He looked at his hands in awe, before looking at his friend who was now slightly winded.

"Are you okay? What was that?!" He asked slightly panicked. She rounded on him with a glare.

"Did you cheat to get in here?" Shaya asked him bluntly, and he reeled back in shock for a moment. He very, very, briefly considered lying. Before he just drooped his head and accepted his fate.

"Yes." He said solemnly as he accepted whatever his friend would do.

"Alright then." She said simply and he lifted his head to look at her in disbelief, and she had a very devious grin. "What? This is a school to train Huntsmen, and you can be certain I'm going to be training you. Congratulations Jaune, you're not allowed to drop out now."

"B-b-but, aren't you going to tell the Headmaster about it or something?!" He asked, fully expecting Shaya to do the lawful thing.

He didn't expect Shaya to laugh in his face. "HehehahahahaHA! You think my Daddy would get fooled by any faked transcript? If you tried to fake your entry and you actually made it in, it's because he knows and he still expects great things from you."

has stopped running... rebooting... "Wait, 'Daddy?!'" He asked in a panicked tone. "Your Dad is the headmaster here? Then that means that you're-"

"Shaya Ozpin, 'The Princess of Vale.'" She greeted her friend with an adorable curtsy to go with the title. She then grabbed him by the arm and started running in the direction of the assembly hall. "Now, come on, we need to hurry or we're going to be late!"

* * *

The two got into the assembly hall just in time to see the, as Shaya put it, 'Snow Bitch' vaguely pointing in their direction while saying something, but they were too far away to hear exactly what.

"Watch this." She whispered to her friend as her father stepped up onto the stage. She cleared her throat and straightened her posture as the Headmaster got ready.

"I'll... keep this brief." Shaya was moving her lips perfectly in sync with Ozpin's words. "You have traveled here today in search of knowledge- to hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose- direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

Jaune stared at the stage as Ozpin walked away, rather unnerved by the unorthodox speech that the Headmaster gave. "Wow... that was weird." He turned towards Shaya, "is he always like that?"

She smiled lightly at Jaune. "He does this every year to quell the thoughts and feelings of arrogance in the freshman class."

Goodwitch stepped up to the mic. "You will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready, you are dismissed." At that Shaya had a brief moment of deep thought.

"Jaune?"

"Yeah, Shaya?"

"Please tell me you didn't bring your 'normal' pajamas with you." She said with deadly seriousness.

"I refuse to lie to you." Jaune stated completely flatly.

Shaya sighed very loudly. "Jaune, I'm gonna give you two choices."

"Okaaay?" He asked, nervous of what these 'choices' were.

"One. You will be allowed to where your abomination, but you will be sleeping in my room tonight." Jaune opened his mouth to protest her word choice of his favorite pajamas, but she cut him off. "Two. You can sleep in the ballroom with everyone else, but you will do so in your boxers and an undershirt."

Jaune grimaced at the second option briefly. "Why?" He lightly whined.

"Because I refuse to let you make a fool of yourself before you even get fully accepted into the school."

* * *

Noctis walked confidently through the brush into a campsite, only to see said campsite in tatters, save for the main tent. There were scorch marks on the ground, and a number of White Fang grunts either unconscious or dead scattered throughout the clearing. He stormed around to the front of the main tent to see Adam and the Lieutenant staring at a rather... sensual... woman in a very short red dress with a silver haired boy and a green haired girl behind her. This didn't strike much of an impression in him. What did, however, was the fact that they were armed, brandishing their weapons at Adam, and human.

"We believe our operation will be beneficial for both of us." She said before raising her hand, and fire raised from the ground. "Or one of us."

The attention of all five people in the standoff was called to him as he slowly approached while clapping his hands slowly, sarcastically. Red, grey, and yellow eyes tracked him cautiously as he approached. "My my, I certainly never expected to see Adam being strong-armed into something." He said as he turned his eyes to the person in question.

"What are you here for, Ventus?" He asked with a rather expected hostility.

"Me? I'm here because I wanted to see how the organization that you took over using your teachings from our master was doing. I look around and the only thing I think is," He gestured to their surroundings with open hands and a shrug. "Not great." The Snake said with a fang filled grin.

"We were in the middle of something." Warned the green-haired woman as her hand moved towards her own weapons. The silver haired boy appeared to be on guard, meanwhile the leader of the group was most certainly growing interested.

"Calm it down, minty fresh." He told her with a confident smirk as he strode up to the woman with the fire in her eyes. "Hmmm, you are a fascinating person. I don't believe I know anything about you, tell me, do you know who I am?"

The woman gave a sultry smile as she sauntered closer to the reptilian faunus. "Oh I believe I know a little, Noctis Anguis. The White Fang's Winds of Death. One of the deadliest assassins in the world, believed to be roughly as skilled as Marcus Black at only the age of twelve. But most importantly," she gently stroked the side of his face. "The prized student of Raven Branwen."

* * *

Jaune sat on top of one of the multiple beds in the room, dressed in his animal like onesie. "Seriously though, why was I not allowed to just wear this out there?" He asked his friend, who was on the bed opposite him, wearing black pajamas that were covered in adorable little Ursa drawings.

"Jaune, you look like you just came out of one of those amusement parks for toddlers." Shaya stated bluntly. Jaune wilted slightly in response but condeded.

"Point taken." He groaned out. "Seriously though, what was that thing you did before, what was with that glow?"

"I was activating your aura." She stated simply.

"My what-now?" Shaya stared incredulously at him before facepalming and letting out a groan of frustration.

"You know that blue bar in Grimm Race 3? The Focus Point bar?" Receiving a nod of confirmation she continued. "Alright, now imagine if that went down whenever you got hit instead of your health bar, and your health bar only went down once that was completely gone." Another nod. "Now, for as long as that blue bar is active, you always have the buffs 'Bountiful Light' 'Sacred Oath' and 'Deep Protection' active."

Jaune's eyes lit up with interest. "Oh, wow, that sounds awesome." It was Shaya's turn to nod.

"That's what aura is once it's been activated, you can do a lot more with aura, but those are the basics. For example, I used mine to give yours a jump start." She said as she laid back in her bed. "Now go to sleep, we're going to want to get up early if we want to get any of the pancakes at breakfast tomorrow."

He nodded and layed down in the bed he'd been offered, the last common thought the two of them had before drifting out of consciousness was a simple one.

"Tomorrow's gonna be a big day."

 **A/N: And The Shining Beacon has been completed. Please leave any reactions comments, concerns and whatnot in the review section below. Also I recently made a poll for what ships people would like to see in this story. I may or may not implement the winners in once we've gotten a good amount of votes, but regardless I'd just like to see what everyone would be interested in seeing in the future, you can vote for up to 3 ships.**


	12. Chapter 12: The First Step part 1

Shaya walked through the weapons' locker room calmly and drowsily, as Jaune had woken her up not even ten minutes before hand. She just put her sword in Ruby's locker the day beforehand, since she planned on speaking to her before they headed towards the cliff edge.

As she walked she yawned and shut her eyes just in time to feel herself walk into a wall of soft warmth, she instinctively wrapped her arms around it, she felt it shift in response and heard chuckling so she opened her eyes and was greeted with a wall of bright yellow hair.

"Good morning to you too, Shortstuff." Yang teased as Shaya released her friends hair for a moment before burying her face in it. Yang and Ruby raised an eyebrow each at this, and Ruby seemed rather worried that Yang was going to get annoyed with Shaya touching her hair.

"Eh, Shaya, what are you doing?" Ruby asked the smaller girl, only to receive a muffled answer from within the hair that couldn't be understood. "Excuse me?" Shaya removed her head from the natural blanket and blinked at Ruby.

"I said, 'Jaune woke me up too early, and Yang's hair is one of the most comfortable things I've felt in my life.'" Shaya answered as she started to wake up more. Yang "Hmm'd" in thought for a moment before she actually spoke up.

"Hey yeah, I don't remember seeing you or Vomit Boy in the ballroom last night." She said witha confused look on her face. "What was that about?" She asked.

"Jaune has absolutely no sense of embarrassment, so I was keeping him from making a fool of himself by inviting him to sleep in one of the extra beds I have in my room." The spiky-haired huntress in training responded.

Yang had a look of remembrance on her face as she snapped her fingers. "Oh that's right. You said your dad works here at Beacon, huh? I wonder if we'll have him as a teacher." She said to herself as well as them. Shaya chuckled softly to herself.

"Yang, with your grades and hobbies I doubt you could ever get the Headmaster to tutor you." Ruby said to her sister, which would've had Shaya glaring at her, had it not been the perfect moment for the reveal. Yang's face froze up for just a moment, then she blinked and she got the greatest shit-eating grin, she understood easier than Shaya had thought she would.

"Shaya, did you convince your dad to move you and Ruby up to my grade?" Yang asked her small friend, and was surprised when she shook her head.

"Dad does things like that all the time, Aunt Goodwitch gets really annoyed at him, but can't really say anything since everything usually works out with his impulsive decisions." Shaya grabbed her sword from Ruby's locker. "So what were you talking about before I got here?"

Ruby directed an indignant glare towards her sister as she slammed her locker door shut. "Yang here thinks that I need to go and 'break out of my shell,' which is absolutely-"

Jaune had the oh so perfect timing to walk by at that moment shouting as well. "- ridiculous! There's no way I put my stuff in locker 636 yesterday- hey Shaya- I would've remembered having to count that high." He let out a sound that was akin to the mix of a whine and a groan. "Why'd this have to happen today?!" He cried as he walked past a red head and the Snow-Bitch.

"So Pyrrha, have you given any though as to who you'd like on your team? I'm sure there are many people who'd want to partner up with such a strong individual, such as yourself." Weiss said as she tried to flatter Pyrrha into wanting a partnership. Pyrrha, on the otherhand, merely shrugged.

"I don't know, I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may." She said with as much enthusiasm as she could force into this exchange, not particularly keen on partnering with another person that merely sees her as the "Invincible Girl."

"Well, I was thinking that you and I could be on a team together." The Heiress finally offered, to which Pyrrha gave a smile that you could only tell was forced if you looked very, very, closely.

"That sounds grand!" She exclaimed. To which Weiss had started an inner diabolical monologue, which was shortly after cut off by one Arc Ex Machina.

"You know what else is great? Me, Jaune Arc, nice to meetcha." He introduced himself with all of the subtlety and grace of an Ursa in a party store.

Weiss forced herself to suppress a very unladylike groan, instead choosing to give about an air of annoyance. "You again?" She asked, while Pyrrha leaned in and waved.

"Nice to meet you, Jaune." Only for him to gently move her out of the way so he could take a step closer to the white haired assho- beauty, I meant beauty.

"So, Weiss, couldn't help but notice you staring at me the other day." The Arc said while performing odd gestures meant to show off muscles that he doesn't have.

Weiss folded her hand over her eyes in annoyance. "Oh you have got to be kidding me." Jaune gently waved a hand in front of her in some form of misguided placating attempt.

"No need to be embarrassed, I don't blame you for looking." He said in the same tone he had been using this entire time. "So, I've been hearing rumors about teeeaaaaams~ I was thinking you and me would make a good one, waddya say?"

"Actually," Pyrrha cut in, "I believe the teams are comprised of four students each, so-"

"-You don't say." Jaune said flatly before immediately side-stepping over to Pyrrha. "Well, hot-stuff, play your cards right and maybe you could join up with the winning team." Weiss, having enough of his joy and happiness, decided to attempt to destroy his confidence as well as the light and warmth of his soul.

"Jaune, is it?" She asked as she stepped between them. "Do you have any Idea who you're talking too?"

"Not in the slightest, snow angel."

"This is Pyrrha." She said while gesturing towards the girl, who chimed in with another wave and a cheerful "hello again," before Weiss continued on her mission to annihilate happiness. "Pyrrha graduated at the top of her class at Sanctum Academy."

"Never heard of it."

Weiss scoffed, before continuing. "She's one the Mistral regional tournaments four years in a row, a new record."

"The what?"

Weiss fumed, before frantically waving her arms up and down. "She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!" Maybe that would get an idiot like him to learn his place, and she thought she'd succeeded when his eyes finally lit up with recognition at something. However, when Jaune just walked straight up to her and offered a handshake, she realized he wasn't going to be losing that attitude any time soon.

Meanwhile Pyrrah was elated that someone hadn't immediately started gushing about her once they realized who she was. "Honestly, Jaune, I was expecting you to be a bit more... starstruck. I'm glad you weren't though."

Jaune responded by laughing for a moment. "Pyrrha, yesterday I found out that for the past eight and a half years, I've been playing online video games with the 'Princess of Vale,' she then boosted my aura and then poked fun at me for what kind of pajamas I wear. You know what I learned from that?" He asked as he went on his rant, and not giving Pyrrha time to respond, he continued. "I learned that the media is, pardon my profanity, full of shit. They all said that Shaya was refined, mature, and rather dainty if she was anywhere but in conflict." He paused for a moment to look at Pyrrah and Weiss, and didn't notice that Shaya was nearby listening with Yang and Ruby.

"And?" Weiss asked, actually listening closely to him for a moment.

Jaune gave a smile, and not the cocky, arrogant smile he'd had on when he hit on them, just a nice simple smile. "That little psychopath is one of the most vulgar, aggressive people I have ever met when she's angry, and one of the most adorable, childish, heart-meltingly cute balls of joy I've ever met when she's happy. She is anything but refined, she's just a person, and I wouldn't want it any other way."

Weiss just blinked at him for a few moments. "That's... very mature of you, well done."

Jaune just shrugged, the rant had made him forget that he'd been flirting with both of them just moments ago, and he just gave his same honest smile. "It's like my dad always told me, 'Celebrities and heroes are always put on a pedestal by normal people, and despite what we may think, it's uncommon for them to forget that.'" Everyone now was staring at Jaune in shock.

Then they all unanimously face palmed when he went back into his flirting tone. "So... does that mean you're up for team Jaune? Whaddya say? I'd love to have such a beautiful lady such as yourself by my side." He said as he now violated just about every rule of personal space in the book.

Weiss started shaking her hands back and forth. "Okay. That's WAY to close, a little help please?" She begged to Pyrrha who unfolded her spear and suddenly embedded Jaune into a pillar by his hood.

"Would all first year students, please report to Beacon's Cliffside." The voice of Glynda Goodwitch rang out over an intercom.

Pyrrha's spear was removed from the wall, allowing Jaune to slump to the floor. "It was nice meeting you." She said as she walked off towards the Cliffs. He hung his head as he mumbled out a "likewise" in response.

Yang, Shaya, and Ruby walked up afterwards, with Yang taking the initiative to tease Jaune. "Having some trouble there, lady-killer?"

Ruby helped Jaune up to his feet as Jaune whined. "My dad so all women look for is confidence, argh, where did I go wrong?!"

Shaya pat Jaune on the arm reassuringly. "Confidence Jaune, not arrogance." With that they all began their trek towards the cliff. "Although, I've got no idea why you tried to hit on Snow Bitch of all people."

 **A/N: Alright that's a wrap on the first part of The First Step. BTW I've gotten a question from a couple of you asking if Shaya knows how to use KI or if she can fly or whatever. The answer to all of that? No. She is completely unaware of her natural capacity to wield KI, the purple light is her Aura, she does actually have a semblance, and she will learn to wield KI later on. Also, sorry about the short chapter, but the chapter length will be influenced by the length of the episodes I'm going from.**


	13. Chapter 13: Players and Pieces

Shaya was standing on one of the launch pads at Beacon's cliff, her Dad and Aunt Goodwitch were explaining everything about the initiation to them, and at one point she heard Ruby shriek "What?!" So she was certain that the Crimsonette fully understood what she was being told.

Ozpin eventually ended his usual, rehearsed speech, and continued onto something new. "Now, some of you may have noticed that we have an odd number of students this year. Because of this, there will be one additional relic hidden in the forest, if you receive a partner you will not be eligible to gain the reward from this relic. Should you locate the relic without having a partner you will be given a privilege not normally seen at this school, you will be allowed to pick which team you will be assigned to." Ruby, as well as several others, brightened up at that. "However," they all visibly shrank, "I do not recommend going after that option. The relic is guarded by an A-Class grimm, if you do not have the confidence to slay such a thing without having received a partner, you may always forfeit the exam, and try again next year."

Shaya would be the last person launched off the cliff, right after Jaune, so she took this moment to grab his attention via a kick to the shin. "Hey, what was that for?" He asked, as he was just about to raise his hand to ask Ozpin a question.

"Jaune, you don't have a landing strategy, so I'm going to tell you a rather simple one that should work considering your monstrous amount of aura." She hurriedly told him as other people began getting launched to their possible doom. "When you get in the air, just focus on recreating the feeling you had when I first unlocked your aura. If you can do that, then the worst injuries you'll have to worry about will be a dislocation or a concussion if you land on your head."

Jaune nodded to her, a small amount of panic on his face. "Alright, alright, simple. Yeah, I can do that. Just make the same feeling, just make the same feeEEEEELIIIING!" He cried out in surprise as he was sent flying, and Shaya looked towards him in concern for a moment.

She didn't have time to think out her concern however, as she was immediately propelled through the air in the same general direction as all of her future classmates. She wrapped her tail around her waist, and curled up into a ball mid-air as she pushed her aura to instead of covering the areas she now had hidden from whatever may impact them, to reinforce the aura protecting the areas that would take the hit of the crash.

Pooling her aura as much as she possibly could, she began glowing a brighter and brighter violet shine, until she would appear to the rest of the students as a bright purple meteor crashing into the Emerald Forest.

* * *

Ruby Rose dropped from the tree she swung from to slow down her descent, landing in a crouch. 'Gotta find Yang, gotta find Yang, gotta fiiind.' She thought to herself as she ran through the woods.

"Yaaaaang! Yaaaaaaaaaaaang!" She called out. 'Oh this is bad this is really bad. What if I can't find her? What if someone else finds her first?' She thought before coming up with little daydreams in her head. 'There's always Jaune.' She rationalized. 'He's nice... he's funny!' She began picturing a very cartoonish version of her friend getting mauled by adorable looking versions of beowolves. 'I don't think he's very good in a fight though.'

'What about Blake?' She wondered. 'So mysterious, so calm... Plus she likes books! I don't really think I could hold a conversation with her though...' She concluded before something popped into her head. 'Oh! How could I forget about Shaya? If I can find her, then I'm set. Won't have to worry about any of that getting to know you stuff.'

* * *

Lie Ren smoothly landed after spiralling down the side of a tree, brushing off any woodchips that got on his clothing, he narrowed his eyes into the forest. 'Nora will be looking for me, so if she catches up to me, I'll fully accept that. However, I have a debt I still need to pay. Now would be a good time to get started.' He said as he broke into a light jog through the woods. "You're moving fast Shaya, but I can still sense you."

* * *

Shaya was bolting through the forest, she had her eyes to the ground because she would NOT risk accidentally making eye contact with the Schnee. She instead used her nose and ability to sense aura to navigate long term. To be perfectly honest, she wasn't looking for a partner in general, and was actively moving away from all solo aura signatures in an effort to avoid getting paired.

She did that for one simple reason, her Dad knew she let a terrorist into Beacon, and was giving her a chance to keep an eye on said terrorist. They'd never had any words about it, never had a moment where they even hinted to the other about what she'd done or that he'd known that she'd done it.

No, it was because of one simple fact that she knew that he knew. He changed the initiation test, he NEVER changes the initiation test. There are never a number of 1st year students that aren't a multiple of four. When he changed the test he told her something without using any direct wording at all, but she saw it in his eyes.

'Take responsibility for what you've done, or someone that should be here, won't be.'

Shaya refused to be the reason that someone else's plans for their life were delayed or possibly ruined. So, she decided that she'd kill two birds with one stone.

Keep a close eye on Blake Belladonna, without harming the development of others. Whichever team Blake got assigned to, Shaya would be there to monitor her.

She enjoyed this, her father told her a long time ago that many prolonged interactions in life can be compared to games of chess. The best pawns are ones that aren't aware they're being manipulated, and the best chess-master is the one no one knows exists. After all, it's hard to undermine one's power if you aren't aware they're a threat.

Getting back on topic, she could feel the aura's of the other participants in the forest, she'd only need to actively avoid two or three people for just a little while longer. Ren was being particularly tenacious in his pursuit of her, but he unfortunately just wasn't an endurance runner, so he'd never catch her.

Paying so little attention to what she saw with her eyes, and only to what she could smell hear and feel with her aura, she eventually ran straight past the forest temple in order to follow the scent she'd been tracking.

She followed the scent of death and decay, she was tracking a very large grim. There were a handful of B-Class Grimm throughout the forest, a handful of Ursa Majors, an Alpha Beowolf, an Elder Deathstalker, and a Giant Nevermore. All of them stay in their own little territories unless disturbed, so the only scent that would go this far through the forest would be that of the A-Class.

She wondered what the A-Class would be. Would it be a Terror-Wing Nevermore? A Goliath? A Prime Griffon? Maybe a Manticore. She broke through a series of bushes, expecting just to see empty space as the scent and trail got stronger, she was wrong.

She found her target.

And it was awake.

"Oh fuck me."

* * *

Pyrrha flopped to the ground at the feet of the rest of the first years except for the small faunus girl that the majority of them had become acquainted with. Yang, in all of her sassiness, placed her hands on her hips and exclaimed. "Great, the gang's all here, now we can die together!"

Ruby unfolded Crscent Rose and got into a charging position. "Not if I can-" Whatever words of bravado and action she was about to unveil, stopped dead when the sound of splintering wood and falling trees drew the entire groups attention. As they turned to look in the direction of the noise, a black and purple blue flew past them, stopping only after it shattered another tree in its' flight.

Shaya lied in the wreckage of the plant, panting as her aura pulsed erratically. The glow being blindingly bright in some areas, while being almost nonexistent in others. She struggled to her feet slowly before looking past her friends towards the beast that had sent her flying. The group followed her gaze and froze up.

The pitch black fur covering the body of a massive lion, two horns atop its head, large webbed wings spread from its back, and a very intimidating scorpion tail splayed in place of a lion's normal tail.

A Hell-Kin Manticore, the most dangerous A-Class Grimm there is. Only thing keeping it from being labeled as S-Class is the fact that it can be killed through sheer force of power, while all S-Class have some form of trick to killing them. A Chimera must have all three of its' heads killed at once or it will heal indefinitely is one such example.

It roared at the group and despite not being anywear near any of them, it was enough to make them want to flee. "Shaya!" Ren and Yang both cried out as they finished processing what had just happened.

Nora, on the other hand, didn't waste time shouting in concern, choosing to turn around unfolding Magnhild with an angry grin on her face. Jaune put a hand on her shoulder to stop her briefly.

"Don't rush off, we can't fight them all here." He said, not forgetting about the Nevermore or the Deathstalker. Nora looked like she was about to protest when he cut her off. "We're not going to let it get away with hurting Shaya, but if we try to fight all three of those things here, we'll get slaughtered."

Yang and Ren, walking back with a more stable Shaya, looked at him with raised eyebrows while Ruby asked the question on everyone's mind. "What's the plan then?"

The Manticore had gotten impatient and roared as it began to charge at them from the edge of the clearing. Jaune immediately pointed in the direction slightly uphill. "This way, I saw some ruins that we can use to separate them while I was screaming for my life in free-fall." He pointed at Nora, Ruby, and Yang. "You three have the hardest hitting weapons here, I need you to try and slow that thing down as we all run, don't slow down even if you're missing your shots. No one can fall behind."

Without any further instruction the group began their tactical retreat while being covered by the aforementioned heavy hitters and the occasional beam of aura from Shaya's blade.

Once they eventually made it to the ruins that Jaune had mentioned, they noticed that the bridge would be narrow enough that the Deathstalker wouldn't be able to get across it. As thhey ran across it the Giant Nevermore decided to grace them with its presence via destroying the bridge.

Yang, Weiss, Ruby, Nora and Jaune landed on the side further into the ruins. While Pyrrha, Ren, Blake and Shaya were stuck on the side with the Deathstalker.

The entire group viewing the Deathstalker came to the same thought just a moment too late. "Where is the Manticore?" Jaune asked, and then said beast flew straight over the Deathstalker and tackled Shaya straight off the broken ledge of the bridge, luckily their momentum kept them going and they impacted onto a platform below where Nora and Jaune stood on the bridge. "Shaya!"

Said girl was currently dodging around the manticore's swipes, parrying the ones she can't dodge using her weapon. She called to Jaune without looking up. "Take care of the freaking scorpion, then come help me!" She shouted before a very close attack. "Hurry!"

Nora glared at the Deathstalker across the bridge. "You heard her." She said to the blue eyed knight, who nodded uncertainly.

"Yeah, but uh... I can't make that jump." He said as he gestured to the massive gap. Seeing Nora unfold Magnhild, and fully understanding the laws of cause and effect thanks to Shaya, he moved to the back of the bridge and readied himself. "Do it."

* * *

The Manticore slowly circled the room as Shaya kept her guard up, it was gauging her, looking for an opening. It leapt into the air and flew down from above, pouncing on the spot where Shaya had stood just moments before she rolled towards the beast, ending up under it for a brief moment, but it kicked her out from her position with it's hind leg before spinning to smack her out of the air with its wing.

Shaya stumbled after dropping down from the pillar she impacted, slightly dazed, she rolled to the right to avoid the Manticore's stinger, which impaled the ground behind her and melted the stone with the venom. The two combatants got back into a neutral position, looking for weaknesses in the other one's stance. Shaya, for as skilled as she was with control of her aura, could tell that her aura levels were in the red.

"Alright, Shaya, just like Grimm Race one." She reassured herself as they paced across from each other. "Except, y'know, no Healing Estus or invincibility frames, or phantoms or health bar."

The Manticore roared and charged at her, going for a low swipe, she jumped over it and thrust her blade at its head, only for it to escape a puncture and instead only end up with a thin cut going along its face, before it floored her and sent her through another pillar with its other paw. When that happened she felt something she hadn't felt in roughly eight years.

Shaya felt her aura break.

"Aw, shit." She cursed as she panted on the floor and recoiled as the manticore leapt for the killing blow.

*Clang*

The Manticore was trying to bite down, only to have the movement of its' jaw hindered by a kite shield held by the blonde idiot that she'd grown up talking to. "Hey, Jaune." She said as she continued sitting against the wall. "I guess you finally got good."

"What?!" Jaune asked as he pushed back against the beast that was well over three times his size.

"You always needed my help with the Sanctuary Guardian, now you're helping me."

"Is now seriously the time?!" He yelled as he shoved back the Manticore, before it tried to pierce Jaune with its tail only for him to knock it to the side with his shield, step on it, and slice it straight off with his sword. As the monster recoiled back in pain, Jaune stared at his hands in surprise. "Holy crap!" He turned to Shaya, "I just-"

He was cut off as the Manticore smashed him into another pillar using a wide sweep of its paw. It tried to rip out Jaune's throat, only for Jaune to stick his shield in its mouth once again. This time however, he didn't have any leverage to push the monster away, and Shaya watched in shock as Jaune's shield was pushed closer and closer to his neck.

The edge of his shield pressed against his throat, if his aura gave way for even an instant, his shoulders would be relieved the weight of his head by his own shield.

Jaune felt the air itself around him get heavier as he noticed he was able to start pushing the shield further away from his throat, if only by an inch. He finally saw where that intense feeling was coming from.

Shaya stood in front of him.

Pushing against the Manticore's chest.

With waves of Blue Light rolling off of her.

The palm of her right hand began to spark with eerie dark purple and black energy and she roared. "Vanishing Ball."

 **A/N: Aaaaaand that chapter is done! How'd you like it everyone. Now, Jaune is a bit more skilled at all of this stuff due to his interaction with Shaya, but also due to one key fact that he's always displayed throughout the show. In situations where something has his full attention, and he needs to step up his game, he always does. He has never failed when it matters.**

 **Onto another thing, I was planning on starting up a new story in addition to this one soon. I was wondering what you guys would be interesting in reading.**

 **A: Bleach and RWBY crossover.**

 **B: Fallout and RWBY crossover.**

 **C: An AU Dark Souls and RWBY crossover.**

 **D: Name another crossover with RWBY you think would be interesting and if my friend and I know what it is, we'd probably start brainstorming for it.**


	14. An Authors Note a Long Time Coming

**Hi, Shmander here, so any of you who've even looked at the date of the most recent update prior to this would know that it has been very nearly a year since I last updated the story.**

 **I'm sorry.**

 **I'd been writing the story on an ipad I got from my highschool, and when I graduated I had to give it back. This left me without a writing tool for the longest time (since I sure as hell wasn't going to write on my phone). I finally got a laptop, so yay, more updates right?**

 **No.**

 **Not yet anyway.**

 **It's been way too long since I've written and even longer since I thought in depth about this story.**

 **To tell you the truth, I already have the whole plotline for this entire story in my head. I just can't put the points into place.**

 **So, as much as all of you probably guessed, this story is obviously going on Hiatus for a while. I'm going to be trying to write other stories in the meantime.**

 **This story is NOT dead, however. I have no intention of abandoning it to the depths of the fanfiction archives, as I've spent way too damn long thinking about it to let it go to waste.**

 **It's just, another story's time for now. Which one it is, I'm uncertain of.**

 **Anyway, yeah, this has been Shmander, as the bearer of bad news. Signing off.**


End file.
